Revolution in Time (Out of Time #10) (22 page)

They agreed and he turned, dismissing them without actually doing so. “Send in Bouchet, would you? I seem to have misplaced my breeches.”
 

~~~

“Remarkable, isn’t it?”
 

Victor grunted. He was not really listening. He seldom listened to Travers. Ever since they left the chateau this morning to follow Bancroft, he had been prattling on endlessly.

“That’s where the Eiffel Tower should be,” Travers continued, unabated. “Will be.”

“This is not a sightseeing tour.”

Despite what he said, Victor glanced across the Seine to see for himself. How many times had he stood here, in this very spot? It was disconcerting to see the tower not where it should be. He should have been used to seeing such things, or not seeing them, in his travels through time. However, he seldom allowed himself to look beyond the focus of his missions. He was not there to admire things but to save lives and, more often than not, to take them.

“You’re right, of course,” Travers said. “I’m sorry.”

Victor grunted again, pleased to have the relative quiet of the river now. Ahead of them, Edward Bancroft strolled along enjoying the unseasonably warm winter day.

He paused to look at the river. Victor and Travers did the same, moving behind the cover of a horse-chestnut tree to block his view. Victor peered around the edge to keep an eye on him.

After a moment, Bancroft continued on, but Victor made no move to follow.

“Shouldn’t we …?” Travers asked.

Victor shook his head and watched Bancroft disappear down the path.

After a few moments, he walked to the spot where Bancroft had been.

“Why aren’t we following him?” Travers asked. “Aren’t we trying to find Quincy?”

Victor walked around the tree and then smiled. He pulled the letter out of its hiding hole.

“Oh!”

It was a tried and true way of passing information—the dead drop. He opened the letter, read it and handed it to Travers.

He started back toward the chateau, and Travers hurried to catch up.

“I don’t understand. It’s just a letter about some man’s romantic exploits: Edward Edwards.”

“So it appears.” He took the letter back and stuffed it into his breast pocket. “Unless you know how to read between the lines.”

~~~

Peter held the letter over a candle flame, and words appeared between the written text. Invisible ink. Remarkable.

“When you said read between the lines, you meant it.”

Victor frowned and snatched the paper from his hands. “For all the good it has done us. This is useless.”

Peter knew it was, at least for their purposes, but it was still so exciting to be part of it all—Bancroft reporting secretly to his British masters while working right under Franklin’s nose.

But Peter also knew he had to temper his enthusiasm, and not just to keep Victor from killing him. Despite the letter’s historical significance, it didn’t have anything in it that would help them protect Franklin for the next few days until the note from Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, arrived and the treaty was assured.

“We are still no closer to finding Quincy than we were yesterday.”

Victor tossed the letter into the fire. Peter thought about saving it, but Victor was right. Sadly, he watched it burn.

D
ECEMBER
26, 1776 - S
OUTH
of Titusville, New Jersey

Jack and Teddy started searching for Burgess as soon as Hamilton was otherwise occupied. The men who’d been first across took the opportunity to try and catch a little sleep before the marching began. They were curled up at the base of trees, under overturned rowboats and just about everywhere Jack stepped.
 

Jack sighed and took off his hat to shake off the snow. Burgess could have been any of them, and they’d never know. Still, they kept on looking and hoping.

Finally, at about four in the morning, the last of the equipment and men had been ferried across the river and they were told to prepare to march to Trenton.
 

Nine
miles
to Trenton.

How these men, in their condition, with no sleep, no food, and a storm fit to freeze the devil himself could do it, Jack didn’t know. But they would, and he was damn well going to make sure it wasn’t in vain.

“We should go back,” Teddy said as they reached the end of the impromptu camp on the eastern shore of the river.

Jack clenched his jaw and nodded. “All right, but —”

He stopped and put out a hand to stop Teddy as well.

He wasn’t sure what made him pause, but he’d learned to trust his instincts. Teddy looked up at him expectantly, his eyelashes caked with frost.

Jack held up a quieting hand and they waited. One horse, and then another, neighed in the distance. A group of them were picketed nearby.
 

Jack jerked his thumb in the direction of the horses, and they made their way up the slippery bank. It was still dark but, even in the darkness, Jack could see a figure moving near the leads of one of the horses.

The man untied the reins of a strong looking sorrel from the picket line. As he did, Jack knew it was Burgess. And as if Burgess felt them watching, he looked up and saw them. Their eyes met for a moment. Then he hurried and mounted the horse, riding quickly away.

“Dammit.”

Jack ran after him and untied the line of an appaloosa. Teddy arrived at his side and Jack turned to him.

“Stay close to Sullivan. You’ll be all right.”

He mounted the horse and turned him halfway around. “If I don’t make it, it’s up to you.”

Teddy’s face pinched, but he nodded.
 

“I’ll find you,” Jack said and then turned his horse in the direction Burgess had ridden and dug in his heels.

~~~

Teddy watched Jack disappear into the forest. A ball of worry spun in his stomach as he realized he was alone now.
 

Jack would be all right. He was sure of it. He would catch up to Burgess, and this would all be over. Teddy stood there on the edge of the woods and watched, hoping it would happen then. Right then. But it didn’t.
 

Jack didn’t come riding back.

There was only silence. And the storm.

Teddy dispelled the negativity that threatened to overwhelm him. He wouldn’t let Jack down. He wasn’t nearly as strong or brave as the men who were about to risk everything to build a nation, but he could do what needed to be done.

He hoped.
 

He turned as two men came along to untie the horses for the carts. It was clear from the looks on their faces that they noticed the ten horses they’d tied up here were eight now.

“Two of them got away,” Teddy said. “I tried to catch them.”

The heavier set man of the two sighed and nodded. He looked off into the dark forest and considered following them.
 

“Never find them now,” the other said. “Isn’t time anyway.”

Teddy dipped his head in apology for his failure and scurried back down the slope to the shoreline to find Sullivan. He found him and the rest of the men preparing the artillery for the march.

“Where’s Mister Wells?” Sullivan asked.

Teddy shook his head. “Not feeling well. Fever.”

Sullivan frowned disapprovingly, but his expression changed when his attention was diverted by something ahead. Jack forgotten and Teddy pushed to the back of his mind, Sullivan hurried ahead, leaving Teddy with the others.

Teddy took a deep breath and tried not to let fear overwhelm him. He’d been afraid before, but this was different. It was always different when your fear was for someone else.

Slowly, the column ahead started moving. Their long march had begun.

S
EPTEMBER
28, 1774 - L
ONDON
, England

“I’m all right,” she said again. “I feel a little like throwing up, but I’m all right.”

Simon stood in the doorway to their bedroom at the inn, a worried look now permanently etched into his features. He took a step closer. “The baby?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “She’s fine. I’m just angry. And a little freaked out. That was close.”

Simon’s jaw clenched. He came over to her and ran a hand down her arm. “Yes.”

Poor Simon. As upset as she was, being nearly killed did that to a person, he was having some serious PTSD.
 

She was starting to understand what it was like for him being in a near-constant state of alert. Her adrenaline had only now started to recede. Her whole body felt flushed and electric. She took in a deep breath and let it out.
 

She looked down at the bed where her dress and top petticoat lay. She’d taken off most of her clothes to clean them. They were a mess, but it was not as bad as it could have been. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. It could have been very, very bad. Her hand went reflexively to her stomach.
 

For a moment, she let go of everything but Charlotte. Maybe it was all in her mind, but she could swear she could feel her, feel her presence. And as if Charlotte knew she needed reassurance, Elizabeth felt that bubbly nudge she’d felt back in Teddy’s study.

Content that everything was truly all right, she let her fear go and focused on her anger. People really needed to stop trying to kill her child.

She picked up her dress and then put it back down as she tried to focus.

“We shouldn’t leave Paine alone,” she said.

“He’s not. I made arrangements with William to go back and pick him up when he leaves the Royal Society.”

“We should be there.” She sat down on the bed and lifted up the last of her petticoats. Her knee was skinned.
 

“We should be home.”

“Simon—”

He held up a hand. “Don’t.”

He stalked across the room. “If you don’t let me rage a little right now I am going to lose my bloody mind, Elizabeth. I swear to you, I am going to lose it.”

“All right. But when you’re finished, would you find me something for this?”

She held up her skirt edge and showed him the scrape.

He stared at it for a long moment and then let out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

Elizabeth let her skirts fall and got up from the bed. She walked over to him. It hurt more than any bruise to see him like this.

“I don’t feel like it either, but we’ve got to keep it together. Just for two more days.”

He nodded and she could see him working to put all of the pieces of himself back in place. She felt a little like a jigsaw puzzle loose in a box herself. She was all there, but nothing was where it was supposed to be.

Simon pushed out a cleansing breath and pulled her into his arms.

“And when we get home,” she said, “I am going to take a bath for a week.”

He gave a short laugh.
 

“But for now,” she said, “I’m going to do my best to get whatever that is,” she added with a gesture toward her dress, “off my dress, have dinner with Thomas Paine and save the freakin’ world.”

~~~

“More wine?” Simon asked as he held the bottle out to Paine.

Paine wiped his mouth with his napkin and thought about it. “Half a glass.”

Simon poured it and considered having another glass himself, but he needed to stay sharp. Phillips was out there somewhere, and now he had two targets instead of one.

Paine took a sip and smiled, a rare thing for him. He was a serious man who seldom let himself go even in the smallest way.

“Your family is from Sussex?” Paine asked as he put his glass down.

“Yes.”

“One of the ‘great oaks that shade our country’ or so Burke would have us believe.” He frowned down at his hands. “I am of a different mind. I grew up in a modest home in Thetford. What Dafoe called ‘the country people who fare indifferently.’”

“Indifferently?” Elizabeth asked.

Paine lifted his chin and arched an eyebrow like a teacher about to lay some esoteric knowledge at the feet of his humble student.

“According to some, there are seven classes of people in England. The Great, who live profusely; The Rich, who live plentifully; the Middle Sort, who live well; the Working Trades who labor hard but feel no want; the Country people, the Farmer, etc. who fare indifferently; the Poor who fare hard; and the Miserable that pinch and suffer from want.”

He leaned back in his chair. “It is a system in which one may move down, but never up.”

“Things are different in America,” Elizabeth said. “A little.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “There was a lord in a town not far from where I lived as a boy. One morning he rose and stood at the window of his great house. He looked out upon the countryside and found his view was marred by the village in the distance.”

He took a sip of wine. “Do you know what he did? He had the entire town: buildings, mothers, children, all of it, moved. On a whim. This is the power these men, families like the Crosses, wield in this world.”

He leaned forward and tilted his head to the side in question. “How can a man better himself when he has so little control over his own life?”

“I agree,” Simon said.

Paine arched a skeptical eyebrow.
 

Simon beat him to the punch. “Yes, I have benefited greatly from my position, but that does not mean I am blind to the inequity of class.”

“He wouldn’t have married me otherwise,” Elizabeth said.

Paine nodded politely but otherwise ignored her.

Simon saw Elizabeth lean forward and her eyes narrow. He braced himself.

“Forgive me, Mr. Paine, but I must ask, have I done something to offend you?” she asked.

He started to say something, sharp and cutting from the look on his face but thought better of it. His features softened. “No. You simply remind me of someone.”

He looked almost sheepish but crushed that emotion with a powerful fist. “My wife. My first wife. Although, it is an irony that my second was named Elizabeth as well.”

“Second?”

“We are separated,” he said and cast a look to see how this news was taken. When no unpleasant response was given, he continued on. “It is my first wife that you resemble. Around the eyes perhaps.”