The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (41 page)

After ducking in the room, Fairfax
re-emerged with a perplexed Margaret trailing after.
 
"But Dunstan, why cannot it wait half an hour?"
 
If he responded, Betsy didn't hear.
 
He thumped down the stairs, Camden's premier
lady of pleasure forgotten.

Back on the first floor, Betsy
surveyed the common room.
 
Andy had
navigated it by the time the lieutenant reached the foot of the stairs.
 
Realizing he couldn't bowl through dozens of
men to apprehend his quarry, Fairfax shouted.
 
But the din of the room swallowed his words.

With Andy free and clear out the front
door, Betsy ignored Hattie's cocked eyebrow and exited again.
 
They met at the corner of the building.
 
She hugged him despite his grime.
 
"You were brilliant!"

"Thank you.
 
Let me know if you have any other
errands."

"To be sure.
 
Here's the other penny.
 
And remember, this is our little
secret."

"Yes, madam!"
 
Something around the corner snagged his
attention.
 
Then he stared back at her,
elation drained from his expression.
 
"Uh oh.
 
It's
him
,
the lieutenant!"

She snagged his arm and hissed,
"Inside that shed!"
 
They
raced for the shed where Sally stored gardening tools, closed themselves into
humid darkness redolent of corn and earth, and looked out through cracks in the
plank door.
 
Enough light remained for
them to see Fairfax skulk around the corner.
 
He stood still a moment like a cat casting for scent before walking to
the back door and rapping on it.

Hattie shook her head at his
low-voiced query.
 
"Ain't no
younguns fittin' that description come through this dining room,
Lieutenant.
 
No, sir.
 
Good night to you, too."
 
She shut the door.

He turned around on the step, again
surveying the back yard and gardens.
 
Then he idled toward the shed.

Betsy heard Andy suck in a breath
of fear.
 
With her left hand, she
gripped his arm to prevent his flight.
 
With her right hand, she grabbed the handle of a hoe.

Halfway to the shed, Fairfax
paused.
 
His voice softened.
 
"Lad, I apologize for being short with
you."
 
He reached inside his vest
and jingled his purse.
 
"A shilling
if you'll talk."

A shilling was far more than two
pennies.
 
Andy tensed.
 
Betsy, fearing that he was ready to leap for
the bait, clamped her hold on him tighter.
 
In the next second, Fairfax moved his hand from purse to dagger.
 
Andy gulped, understanding his true reward
if he were discovered.
 
Betsy thrust him
behind her, took hold of the hoe with both hands, and bared her teeth.

"Surely a clever lad like you
could use a shilling, eh?"

She held her breath, as did Andy,
while Fairfax listened to the garden around him.
 
Then he sheathed his dagger and strode back the way he'd come.

"Bloody hell!" whispered
Andy.
 
"He
was
going to kill
me!"

Sweat chilled Betsy's brow.
 
She propped the hoe against the wall of the
shed and took a deep breath, remembering the way Fairfax had shot the bandit
while toying with her.
 
"I told you
he wasn't a good man.
 
He should be gone
from Camden in a day or two.
 
Stay clear
of the Leaping Stag so he doesn't catch you."

"You ain't going to see me
around here for awhile, madam."

Hattie wasn't in the dining room to
question Betsy when she returned.
 
Upstairs to her room, she wrestled with a scream of instinct.
 
In myths of old, the gods used respect and
deference when they released elementals.
 
Now that the beast was loosened on the game, it was too late to wonder
whether she, a mere mortal, had been cautious enough.

Chapter Thirty-Three

THE NEXT MORNING Betsy snooped in
Abel's study for the final time.
 
She
hadn't slept well, unnerved by the brush with Fairfax and news from Tom that
they couldn't afford a packhorse until early September.
 
Fairfax was hard at work mining the lead
she'd handed him.
 
Gates was hard at
work driving the Continental Army south.
 
Neither man would grant them a month to escape Camden.
 
But since something about all those
charitable gifts in the ledger nagged her, she pushed aside dread and
grogginess to study ledger entries.

Charitable contributions for 1780
included multiple payments of at least two hundred pounds each from three men
staggered over a period of months.
 
In
her head, she tallied the sum Abel had collected in gifts during the first half
of the year.
 
2,800 pounds.
 
Such a sum would lodge nobility in
comfort.
 
Astounded, she recalculated,
but there was no mistake.

He'd skimmed money off for his
household use.
 
Hence the extravagant
furniture upstairs, Emma's wardrobe, the extensive wine cellar, and the
well-stocked pantry.
 
But 2,800
pounds?
 
Who were these three men?
 
What made them want to donate such sums to a
rebel spy ring?
 
How long had all this
been going on?

For 1779, she found donations from
other men.
 
Entries appeared for
charitable gifts in 1778 and 1777, too.
 
Abel had been living in style for quite awhile.

She stared at Josiah Carter's name,
his gifts for 1777 tallying 1,500 pounds.

Odd.
 
She had Carter pegged for a neutral, not a rebel, and certainly
not a man zealous enough to hand over 1,500 pounds to a spy ring.
 
Such a sum might bankrupt any plantation
owner.
 
Sure enough, his property was
almost deserted of livestock and slaves, and he'd mentioned having to sell off
all his land except three hundred acres.
 
She closed the ledger, replaced it in the top drawer, and stared out the
window at passersby.
 
If Carter's
motivation had been helping the rebels, none of it made sense.

At the time of his first
contribution in March of 1777, the rebels didn't have a chance at victory.
 
Washington was still holding his ragtag army
together with the magic of his personality.
 
France didn't display interest in helping him until late 1777, after
Horatio Gates was victorious at the Battle of Saratoga.
 
Soon after, other countries such as Spain
and Holland announced their interest in the outcome by declaring war on
Britain.
 
But in early 1777, the
American rebels' cause was too laughable in the courts of Europe for the
Stadtholder to fund a spy ring.

The suspicion grew within Betsy
that the men listed in the ledger hadn't donated massive amounts of their money
to fund the Ambrose ring.
 
Carter had
said, "Mr. van Duser and his attorneys dangle blackmail before my
nose."
 
Were Abel Branwell and Jan
van Duser in league all the way back in 1777, and did they blackmail Josiah
Carter out of 1,500 pounds?
 
Were the
"gifts" of the other men the result of blackmail?
 
What could so many men be blackmailed over?

Out the window, she glimpsed Abel
stalking toward the tavern followed by a slender blond fellow about van Duser's
age.
 
What the devil?
 
Abel was returning at least twenty minutes
early from coffee with the surveyors.
 
Betsy made a sweep of the office to ensure nothing looked out of place,
slipped out, and closed the door.
 
When
Abel and his companion brushed past her, she was dusting paneling near the
dining room.

She guessed the blond to be der
Waal, Jan van Duser's partner, and had her guess confirmed when she heard the
Dutch accent in his voice: "I do not know where he is, nor do I know why
he should not have joined us this morning!"

Abel unlocked his office and
snarled.
 
"He's left town to
double-cross me.
 
You're covering for
him."

"Really, sir!"
 
The blond drew himself up with hauteur.
 
"Your insults carry you over the line of
a gentleman's behavior.
 
I do not know
what business you and he engage in, nor do I care to learn, but I have endured
enough of your conduct for the last year and will have no further dealings with
you."

Abel stabbed a finger at him.
 
"The next time you see Mr. Jan van
Duser, you tell him I want to talk with him."

"Do you fancy me your
servant?
 
Seek him yourself."
 
The Dutchman stomped out past Betsy and
slammed the front door to the tavern at the same time Abel slammed his office
door.

"Mercy!
 
What was dat all about?"
 
Sally stepped from the common room into the
hallway and spotted Betsy.
 
"There
you is, Miz Betsy.
 
This here letter
come for you in this morning's post."
 
She handed her a letter.

"Thank you."
 
Betsy glanced at the return address and,
certain she'd misread it, blinked to clear her vision.
 
Martha Neely, Ninety Six, South Carolina?

Sally grinned.
 
"Looks like a good surprise."

"Oh, yes."
 
She hadn't had communication with her
stepfather's aunt in almost ten years.
 
The letter meant the old woman was still alive.
 
Or did it mean that?
 
Betsy tucked her dust rag in the waistband
of her apron, sensing that someone was attempting to communicate with her using
her aunt's name.
 
"I shall run
upstairs and read it in the privacy of my own room."

Run she did, as fast as her
swelling midsection would allow her.
 
Almost out of breath, she closed herself in the room and broke the seal
on the letter.

22 July
1780, Town of Ninety Six

My
dearest Niece:

I
regret the Years that came between us and in my old Age am desirous of renewing
your Acquaintance.
 
Though the Times are
troubled, and much Warfare tears the Colony, please find it in your Heart to
pay your old Aunt a Visit before the Summer ends.
 
I fear I shan't see many more Seasons on this Earth.

Your
loving Aunt

Martha Neely

Betsy reread the letter, set it on
the desk, and walked away.
 
The tone was
appropriate for an old woman wanting to settle her affairs, but the handwriting
was that of a much younger person, and something about it looked familiar.
 
She returned to the letter and examined the
address:
Betsy Sheridan, the Leaping Stag Tavern, Camden, South Carolina
.
 
That the writer hadn't addressed it
"Mrs. John Clark Sheridan" was significant, as if her mysterious
contact from Ninety Six had known that identifying her in connection with Clark
would be a mistake.

Aunt Martha.
 
Betsy closed her eyes and conjured a memory
of the old woman, that of the two of them weeding a flowerbed.
 
"Elizabeth, dear, if you don't use this
spade, you won't get the roots of the weed out."
 
Aunt Martha always called her "Elizabeth" and not
"Betsy."

She stared at the letter again,
addressed not to Elizabeth but to Betsy.
 
The curly "B" drew her attention.
 
She gaped, astounded.
 
"Mother!" she whispered, and turned the letter upside down and
flipped it over and over looking for more information before reading it a third
time.
 
Dared she believe Sophie would be
waiting for her in Ninety Six?

On a hunch, she lit the
candle.
 
With the letter warmed above
the flame, she watched a message appear between the lines:
We are in deep
hiding and dare not risk journey to Camden.
 
If you can make it as far as Mulberry Creek, twenty miles northwest of
Ninety Six, we will find you and bring you to safety
.

Relief, anguish, and anxiety tore
through Betsy's heart.
 
She set the
letter afire to destroy evidence, then sat on the edge of the bed.
 
We
must encompass not only her mother
and father, but Joshua Hale, who'd carried knowledge of her familiarity with
invisible writing, and also Runs With Horses and Standing Wolf.
 
With the armies converging on Camden, and
military action all over the colony ramping up, her uncle and his Creek allies
hadn't been able to escape back to Georgia.
 
But at least they were all safe, and now she knew where to find them.