The Heavens Shall Fall (24 page)

She bent over at her waist.
No, I can’t get sick in front of him.
She felt his hand on her back.

“
Has it passed?”

She looked
up; she saw in his eyes he questioned her. She had to leave, but he wasn’t going to let her. He would find the letters…she couldn’t allow that. She straightened up and gripped his hand.

“
I need to go home, Andre,” she pleaded. “Do not make me tell you why. You will not like the answer.”

“
You don’t know what I would like, Susanna. I’m afraid I must insist.”

“
Oh, I do know you,” she answered.

Her eyes welled with tears she would not shed. She had had no intention of telling him. She had even denied the possibility, even after her fear was confirmed. The realization swept through her it would be the only thing that might let him
allow her to leave.

“
Do you?”

“
I do,” she pressed. “I know you chose me to be your lover because I was safe. I had a husband and was barren. You returned and turned your back on me because I was a widow. Yet you came back to my bed. We both know I am not right for you. You have high hopes for your future, a future that does not include me. Now, though, I have to think about myself.”

Andre looked back over his shoulder,
and then back at her. “I do not have time to talk of this, Susanna. You need—”

She waited no more. The words burst from her.
“I’m with child.”

* * * *

The candle had burnt well into the night when Susanna entered. She wasn’t surprised to find Rupert sitting at his desk with his quill in hand. His attention solely on his composition, he didn’t seem to notice her arrival.

“
You found the letters?”

He looked up at her. His eyes took on a speculative look
; he hadn’t expected to see her.

“
Is this safe?”

Susanna
pushed back her hood to her cloak. “If I didn’t believe so, I wouldn’t have come. I would not put you in danger.”

“
Of course, you would not.” He rose and stepped toward her. “And you? You made it through your ordeal.”

His words spoke of concern, but his voice sounded apprehensive and anxious that she was there.

“For better or worse,” she answered. “I do not know if they still suspect, but they have no proof. Tell me, Rupert, that all was not for naught. The letters. I want to know if they held importance…if that man was a contact…if what I did had meaning…that I was not tricked.”

He sighed openly and glanced around the room
as if someone were about to pounce on them both. She refused to be diverted. She pressed him.

“
Rupert, no one followed me,” she assured him. “I took my maid’s cloak and exited the servant’s entrance.”

“
The British have been stern as of late.”

“
With reason, Rupert. Do you not know I realize how callous and ruthless they have become? Lest I remind you, it was I who endured their wrath. How could you set me up in such a fashion without warning? I did not know what to do or if it was the right thing.”

“
You were not tricked. The man was set to intercept the letters. You were a precaution that was deemed necessary. You knew the code and that it was set for a purpose,” he countered. “You would have to realize there are more spies within New York than just you or I.”

“
I do.” She pointed a finger at him. “But you told him who I was.”

Rupert stepped back.
“It was a necessity, I’m afraid. It was imperative to get those letters. Stansbury, it seems, has been a courier.”

“
So I have been right.”

“
It would seem so, but we need verification of the identity of the mole.” Rupert shrugged. He walked back around his desk. He sat back down and scrambled through his writings. “One letter was written in longhand; the other in code. One mentioned risks and profits, no means unreasonable, payment on delivery. It was signed Gustavus. It was to John Anderson.”

“
Andre,” she speculated. “Gustavus? Rupert, it sounds like they are not only turning, but taking something with them. What could it be?”

“
That is what we do not know.”

She studied his face. His response was unsatisfactory. She risked everything to give him the information.
“You suspect, though, and will not tell me.” Her eyes drew upward; she could not believe he withheld the information from her. She could take no more and unleashed her temper. “Do you not believe that I can better help if I understood what I’m seeking? You do not know what it took for me to give you those letters. The humiliation!”

She rushed up to the desk.
“Look at me and listen. Andre let me leave the dinner, but not after having me followed. When I stopped at the cemetery, I deposited the letters in the box we planted by the headstone. No sooner than I had it set than Andre turned up at my side. He was not happy. He was certain it was I.

“
He felt upon my person in front of his guards he brought with him.” Her words faded as she remembered his hands on her, as he reached inside her bodice, up her legs. “He interrogated me. Threatened to have me arrested. I confessed only to whose grave I had come to seek.”

“
And that would be? I thought it a random grave.”

She had quite forgotten he didn
’t know. She had told no one, but General Durham knew. He had been the one to have seen to Walter’s burial and had been kind to her at that moment in time. She shook her head.

“
It doesn’t matter.” Her low voice echoed the pain the truth held. “I had only told one other person—Hannah and now she, too, is gone.”

“
But you are safe at this point. You knew the risk.”

Skeptically, she eyed him.
“The risk? Yes…it is only your risk I wonder about. You decided on a plan. Yet you do not tell me. I could have been caught. I risk my life for something I believed in. But you are pushing the limits, Rupert, giving little thought to my life.”

“
You are wrong, Susanna. I do think of your safety. I dared not contact you because of fear of suspicion. I have worried Andre would suspect you of giving information after Washington reacts to the information we supply. Not because you have been careless, but you have access to him.”

“
But no more. After the other night, I told him I never wanted to see him again. I can play this game no more,” she said with a deep sigh. “It is for the best. I’ve decided to follow my mother and sister. I’m going to England.”

“
England? Good Gawd, Susanna! For what reason? If you want to stop giving information, I will back off. I don’t want to make you leave what we are trying to create.”

She looked at him strangely. She would not make the mistake of believing he cared. Perhaps he would relent on her spying for a time, but
the underlying motive stemmed from the fact he didn’t want to lose her if he had need of her.

”
I’m with child, Rupert. Even if I wanted to do more, I would not.”

Thunderstruck, he asked,
“Andre’s?”

“
Who else’s would it be? Or are you asking who else have I bedded?”

“
No, no,” he repeated. “It was only I didn’t think you could become…” He halted, making the matter worse. “Of course, you will do no more.” He sent her a sidelong look and frowned. “Does Andre know? Oh, God in Heaven! We will have another situation!”

“
Oh, do not worry. Andre will not interfere with my plans. He has made it perfectly clear he does not want this child. I do not need him. Oswyn left me—” Her words halted abruptly as she absorbed his words. 
Another situation.

A sudden remembrance emerged in her mind…subtle talks between Andre and Durham before he departed to Charles Town…her encounter with Durham on his return to New York after…after losing Hannah. Her eyes flared at Rupert.

“Hannah. Hannah’s alive?”

He shook his head in denial. She slammed her hand down on his desk.
“Do not lie to me anymore, Rupert! I will go and tell the British all I know if you do not tell me the truth. The truth for once!”

“
Do you really want the truth?”

Susanna
stared at Rupert for a moment, and then eased back into the chair. “I need the truth.”

She saw the resolve in his eyes, his reluctance, but he nodded. He said with a deep sigh,
“There is no need to tell you more lies. Yes, you deserve the truth.”

Susanna
sat stunned by his tale as she listened. Her hands shook; her heart ached as she tried to comprehend what had happened to Hannah. She should have known! She should have suspected!

A heavy, dead feeling enveloped her. Her bottom lip trembled. For a moment, she couldn
’t find her voice. Finally, she looked up at Rupert. “She is happy?”

“
I believe so,” he answered her honestly. “It surprised me. I thought it would be an issue, but she seems content in the small village. She has made her home as a tavern owner’s wife. Her husband loves her. I know because he is a friend.”

He paused,
and then went on deliberately, “Her husband’s name is Giles. It was he who saved her from your grandfather and stepbrother.” He breathed out deeply. “It was a delicate situation and had to be handled in the utmost secrecy. She left you a letter. She thinks you have known, but understood the need for secrecy. It was I who decided to withhold the information from you.”

A hush fell upon the room. Silent tears, tears she had not cried in years, fell from her eyes. She nodded
, as if accepting his words. “It is good. Good. I don’t suppose I can see her?”

“
It would not be a wise move. When Durham found out his child lived, he went after him. Hannah escaped by crossing the Sound with her children.”

Rupert fell on his knees and took her hand.
“It is time for you to leave. I will arrange it if you want, but not now. We need you. Heron pushed too much and too fast. Their eyes are on his every move.”

“
As they are with me. You don’t understand the danger. I thought I was doomed. Andre…his eyes. I’ve never seen him so angry. If he…if the British discover what I have done, they will show me no mercy.”

“
But you emerged from their scrutiny. They have nothing on you and now…now it will give me time to place another in your stead. I ask that you do nothing but stay. A month only…two at the most. If you believe in our cause, give me time. It is all I ask.”

She said nothing for a while. Finally, she rose and agreed.
“I will do nothing.”

“
Good. That is good. It will give me time,” he said. “It is the last thing I will ask.”

She walked
toward the door, stopped and turned. “Rupert?”

“
Yes, Susanna?”

“
When I caught that drunken fool, Stansbury, as he stumbled, he said something. He said that Arnold was going to be upset with him for drinking. Said Arnold reprimanded him the last time. It is not the first time I’ve heard the name. I thought it an impossibility, but, Rupert, I believe it’s Arnold. I think Andre has turned General Benedict Arnold.”

* * * *

Lord, I want only to feel normal again.
Susanna wiped her face with the wet cloth once more. It was the third time she had thrown up since the morning. No one had told her how nauseated one became when one was expecting, but she had no one to talk to of her affliction.

Anyone she could have talked to of her confinement was no longer in New York. Her mother. Clarissa. Hannah. If she allowed, melancholy would grip her, but she forced herself to think ahead. For the first time since she could remember, she
thought of a future.

A future! It amused her. Most
, she supposed, would be desolate given her circumstance—with child…unmarried…trapped in a city with no one she could trust. But she…she clung to the hope of the child. She took solace with the knowledge she wouldn’t be alone anymore. She felt so alone…

S
he stared at her reflection and pushed back her hair. It had fallen loose out of its braid. Good Lord! She looked a fright! She picked up her brush. A figure emerged in her mirror.

She twisted around.
“Get out!”

Andre made no movement to withdraw. Instead, he slammed the door. She looked at his face as he walked up toward her, so impervious to the
effect he had on her still. He betrayed only his anger and he was angry.

“
You dare defy me!”

“
I dare nothing! What nerve you have!”

He picked her up by her shoulders. There was unmistakable venom in his eyes. If she held any doubt of what he felt about the child…herself, she had her answer.