Ring of Secrets (31 page)

Freeman motioned toward her stain and paper. “Write him, then. But, Winnie girl, I rushed home for another reason.”

She hurried to the shelf and pulled down the invisible ink, her regular ink, two quills, and a sheet of white paper. “What is it?” Onto the table by the lamp she spread out her tools.

Freeman leaned against the table. “I saw George Knight at the wharf. Dressed as a fisherman and helping load crates onto a small vessel.”

Easing onto her chair, Winter kept her gaze on Freeman. “Was he with anyone else? Did you recognize them?”

Freeman nodded. “A few other fishermen from the looks of them. I think…I could be mistaken, but I thought I recognized them from Long Island. Patriots.”

Once before George Knight had aided a Patriot—Silas, from her farm. And then in July, Fairchild had warned Bennet that his friend was seen in dubious company. Was it possible that Mr. Knight was friendly toward their cause? “Were they crates of weapons, do you think?”

Though he shrugged, Freeman's eyes gleamed. “Looked heavy enough to be, though of course I could not investigate it. Winter, is he—”

“I cannot say. I did not think so.” She sent a whoosh of breath through her lips and focused her gaze on nothing. “He always makes himself sound simply mercenary. Yet to be smuggling crates of weapons in the middle of the day…he either has great love of every coin he can find, or something else driving him to such risky actions.”

“There remains the possibility that they were not weapons, and the risk therefore not so great.”

Then why disguise himself? Winter shook her head and turned to her paper. “A possibility, yes. But if you thought that were the case, you would not have rushed back here.” Angling a smile his way, she opened the inkwell and dipped in her quill.

They would be at the Shirleys' tonight, where Winter had attended enough balls that she and Robbie had designated a few locations to slip notes to one another. She would use the bureau in the hallway. And so the logical thing to write in her visible message was a laundry list.

Freeman chuckled. “True enough. It struck me, for certain. If a gunsmith of Knight's ilk is making weapons for the Patriots, he could be a friend indeed.”

Tension made her stomach clench again. “I cannot say if he is
our
friend—but he is Bennet's, and
he
has said on several occasions that if he catches Mr. Knight in dubious enterprises again, he will turn him over to the military.”

Freeman held her gaze as he rested his hand on her shoulder. “And so if he knew our secret…”

“He cannot. 'Tis as simple as that.” A realization she came to anew at least once a week, and which never failed to pull her spirits down into the abyss. It seemed every day she loved him more, wanted more to reveal every crevice of her being to him. She wanted to believe he loved her as much.

But these were strange times they lived in, when family members turned against one another for their loyalties. If Bennet would really offer up his oldest friend to the authorities, then he would certainly do the same to her, whom he had known for less than a year. His reason would rule his heart.

It always did. And she could hardly resent him for one of the things she loved about him.

Pushing that aside, she finished her visible writing, put a tiny A in the top corner, and took the cork from the vial of sympathetic stain. She held it up to the light with a frown. So little left—and with the way things were going, Robbie was unlikely to give her more. But she must use it tonight. There was no help for it.

Freeman was silent as she penned her true note, but once she put down her quill, he cleared his throat. “Winter, I know you love Mr. Lane. And from what I can see, he loves you as well. But if you really fear he would hand you over to a lynch mob, you must ask yourself if this is the match the Lord has planned for you. I cannot think our heavenly Father wants you to hide this part of your heart for the rest of your life.”

“I don't know, Free.” She squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of need washed through her spirit. “I cannot give up my cause, not when I know it's what the Lord has called me to. Yet I have never loved like this, and I cannot fathom why the Father would have given me such an attachment if it is doomed. How to reconcile the two, though…”

“I have been giving it daily to prayer.” His hand settled on her shoulder again, warm and familiar. “An answer will come when the Lord is ready to provide it.”

She nodded and held the paper up to the light to see if it was dry. No ink glistened, so she folded it, carelessly so it would look like an ordinary household list. Then she put the cork back on the few precious drops of stain that remained. “I had better go prepare for the evening.”

“Be careful, Winnie girl.” Freeman smiled, but it was small. “I cannot shake the feeling that we walk a narrower plank than ever before.”

She nodded as she stood. “I feel the same.” And so, when she regained her room after leaving the stable and reclaiming the marshmallows, the first thing she did was drop to her knees beside her bed.

Lord of all, I seek Your assurance, for You are the only one with the answers I need.

Eyes squeezed shut, forehead resting upon the feather ticking of her bed, she clasped her hands and poured out every fear, every hope, every goal, every need before the Father. Concern for André's endeavors, for what this treachery could mean to the Patriot cause. The discomfort she still felt every time Fairchild came to visit. Her love for Bennet she gave over to Him yet again, along with an earnest beseeching that a way would be made clear for the obstacles between them to be removed.

Winter didn't rise until a maid came to help her dress for the ball, and even then her stomach still felt as though a stone rested within it. She knew the Lord had the entire situation in His hand, but she also knew that sometimes He called His children to what seemed like failure, even destruction. That His greater plan often included what man deemed setbacks.

And, oh, how she prayed she were not on a course for one of them.

Grandmother had already given her instruction on what gown she was to wear, a sack-back creation in rose and gold. Only her accessories were ever left to her own choosing, and so she chose the ones with meaning.

Her fan of ostrich feathers, the sign to Robbie that she had left a message for him. A long string of pearls, wound thrice around her neck, to impart it was in their third location at the Shirleys', the top drawer of the bureau in the hall. A bright, silken rose tucked into the tower of her curls—her signal for urgency.

O Lord, let him take heed. Let us not be too late.

With one last, long breath, she determined she was as ready for the evening to come as she could hope to be.

Nineteen

B
en gazed at the dancing couples without really seeing them. Had Mother not come knocking on his door, he would have forgotten about the ball this evening and remained mired in his maps and notes, his charts and lists.

He was close. So close he could all but taste it, and his nerves leaped at every interruption. He was all but certain that Woodhull was the agent in Long Island who served as liaison between Tallmadge and their man in the city. It felt right; it made sense. He had little by way of solid proof, but then, he didn't need it. He wasn't going to try anyone in a court of law.

A group of tittering females swept by, and Ben took a step back, nodding to them but otherwise not attempting a greeting. Perhaps one of these days he would cease bumbling like a nincompoop in fair company, but until then he would content himself with the knowledge that Winter provided a perfect buffer between him and all of her lady friends, and that no one really expected him to pay attention to anyone but her.

When she was by his side, anyway. Which made him wonder what was keeping her. She had excused herself some fifteen minutes ago to see to personal matters.

A quick survey showed him she had been stopped by a few young women near the door. She stood with her usual expression of semi-boredom, her plumed fan waving before her.

His insides did that strange little twist they always did upon first sighting her. And they added a flip when she glanced his way and sent him a small, private smile.

How had he managed to claim such a magnificent creature? Not that she was officially his, of course, but everyone assumed he would propose soon. He assumed it too, if only…if only he could be sure all their advances in honesty would not fall away when she learned the truth about his goals, his very purpose for being here. If only he could be sure all their ideals matched as nicely as he hoped.

But he could hardly share the details of his spy hunt with her. 'Twouldn't do to get her involved. The dangers were too great. The military from both sides would likely toss him happily into prison if they knew what business he had been poking his nose into. Neither would much care for his reasoning. The point remained he was a citizen about work that could be construed as interfering with theirs.

Winter's fan fluttered again, and her gaze flicked to another corner of the room and then back to her companions. Ben turned his eyes toward the corner and sighed.

Townsend. There was no question why Winter would look his way and then away again so quickly. Her old friend still refused to speak to her, and Ben knew it caused her no little grief. He could hardly blame the fellow for that.

But seeing him brought up a whole host of other questions that sent Ben's mind back to the papers locked in his desk.

One of the primary reasons Woodhull emerged as a key suspect in the ring of spies was that his sister and her husband had taken up residence in the city. After the Great Fire, they had opened their doors to boarders. Woodhull reportedly stayed with them frequently a year and more ago, and then his visits tapered off.

It had taken weeks of subtle questions, but Ben had eventually discovered who else had been boarding with this couple during the months when Woodhull had frequented their home.

He was regarding one of them now.

Townsend must have felt his gaze, for he looked Ben's way and nodded. No smile, but Ben hadn't expected one.

But he smiled at Townsend before looking elsewhere. He didn't much like the picture that presented itself when he entertained the notion that Winter's childhood friend may be involved in espionage, but it made all too much sense. Townsend's father had been loudly Whiggish until he was arrested in seventy-six for his politics. Townsend had bent his knee to the Crown along with the rest of his family, but a little digging had turned up that, before that happened, he had attempted to help in the recruiting and organizing of Patriot troops back when Washington occupied the City of New York.

The Townsends were Quaker, and so ought to have been peaceful. To have broken from that enough to gather troops, Robert Townsend had to have felt pretty strongly about the rebel cause.

But now there he stood, mired in Loyalist society. A partner with Rivington, one of the loudest Tories in the city. At all the balls, all the dinners, all the fetes under the guise of a newspaperman. Doing business with nearly every officer in the British military through his store.

If anyone could obtain sensitive information, it was surely Townsend. And he certainly had the friends to get that information out of British territory and into Patriot hands.

Still, it was only supposition. A hypothesis. He must test it somehow. He could not afford to tip his hand until he was without doubt. If he spoke up only to discover he had made a mistake, then he would be forced to leave town and hence would not be able to correct his error.

Better to bide his time. Watch. Listen. Wait. If Townsend were his man, he would find him out soon enough.

He could do nothing now, though, so best to put such thoughts aside. Ben made his way around the edge of the ballroom, his goal to blend into the wallpaper until he made it safely to Winter.

She stepped away from the flock of her friends with a smile in which he had no trouble detecting the gratitude. Tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow, she made him feel instantly more comfortable. “Did you miss me, Mr. Lane?”

Odd how he didn't mind the flirtation, even enjoyed it, now that it wasn't all she offered him. He grinned. “The lights dim when you are
not by my side, Miss Reeves. And as I tend toward clumsiness in the dark, I thought it expedient to find you again at once.”

Winter grinned. “We certainly can't have you tripping over everyone in a ballroom this crowded.”

“My thoughts exactly.” He nodded toward the room's exit. “Shall we step out for a bit of refreshment? A lemonade, perhaps?”

“That sounds delightful.” She cast another glance at Townsend's corner, though.

Miss Shirley followed her gaze and frowned. “Mr. Townsend has not left that corner all night. I do hope his article still reflects well on us. 'Tis hardly our fault he refuses to budge, after all.”

“He will be fair, I am sure.” Winter's smile was as bright and oblivious as ever, but Ben saw the concern in her eyes.

All he could do was cover her fingers with his and think it could be a blessing Townsend refused to speak with her. If he were indeed involved in this spying business, she would be better off having nothing to do with him.