The Messenger (23 page)

“I can’t do that. Not if thy mother has expressly prohibited it.”

“But
you
do it.”

“Whatever can thee mean?” I tried to keep my eyes on my needle, but my fingers were shaking so badly that I soon gave it up.

“You and Doll.”

“She goes calling with me.”

“And she also goes with you to the jail.”

“Thee already know that I go to visit my brother. And thee also know that my parents must not learn of it.”

“Why? Because they’ve
expressly prohibited it
?” She challenged me with a look of defiance.

Could I truly claim that her reasons were not as valid as mine? I suspected, of course, that they were not, but how could I prove that to her without explaining about the escape?

“You’re escaping. You can’t call it anything but. And that means you can help me do it too.”

“I’m not certain it’s worth the risk.”

“It is for you.”

But the life of my brother, the lives of the other prisoners, were at stake. Of course it was worth the risk.

“I don’t think it’s fair that you get to go while I have to stay. So . . . how do you do it?”

The next day, Polly put a hand to her hat as we walked down the front steps and then glanced back at Davy over her shoulder. “We just leave? Like this? With everyone watching?”

“We told him we’re going out and what can he say? We’re leaving together.”

“I suppose you’re escort enough.” She didn’t sound happy about the prospect, and when we got to Third Street she bid me farewell.

“But where are thee going?”

“I’ve an appointment to keep.”

“Thee can’t just leave!”

She frowned at me as she tapped her foot. “That was the whole point. To escape.”

“But thee are leaving
me
without an escort. I can’t go home without thee or we’ll both be in trouble.”

“So go find your Mr. Jones. I won’t tell.”

“I . . . can’t.”

She shrugged as if my concerns had nothing to do with her. “Do as you wish. And I’ll do the same.”

“But what will I say if someone asks me about thee?”

“Why should anyone ask after me? Be back here in an hour and then we can walk home together.”

“I wish thee wouldn’t leave.”

“I’ll be fine. And so will you be. Besides, what can go wrong?”

What can go wrong?

Whatever could have gone wrong had, because over an hour later she had not yet returned. I’d already looked over every volume at the bookseller’s and I’d considered every good at the grocer’s. I had occupied myself in every way that I could think of and still she was absent! There was nothing to be done but enlist the aid of the one person who might know where she had gone. I promised a coin to an urchin on the condition that he go to the King’s Arms and bring out Jeremiah Jones.

Jeremiah

Three days it had been since I’d seen Hannah Sunderland. And all that time I had nursed a growing rage for the men that had misused her. I knew who they were. They’d all fled town as the British army had approached. Otherwise I would have beat their heads together. Just the memory of her, pale-faced and trembling, so wounded and yet so brave, made me want to strike someone. Those cowards ought to have been made to pay for what they’d done.

I don’t know what had possessed me to promise I would keep her safe. I had the desire, it was true. ’Twas the means I lacked. But ever since I’d met her, I’d been saying and doing and feeling things against my better judgment.

Restless, I walked out toward the kitchen to consult with the cook about supper. Before I could reach her, Bartholomew Pruitt came slinking into the tavern saying something about having a message.

“A what?”

“There’s a miss out there says she needs to see you. Quick.”

“A miss?”

“A lady.”

And she was asking for me? I followed him out the public room through the door. Hannah emerged from the shadows as soon as I stepped outside. She was wringing her hands. Her eyes were distraught.

I seized her arm. “What’s happened? Are you—?”

“I’m fine.” A flush swept her cheeks as her gaze fled from mine. “It’s not me; it’s Polly. She’s gone missing.”

“She . . . what?”

“She noticed me going out with Doll so she asked me to help her escape from the house.”

“
Escape?
”

“That’s what she called it. Her mother hasn’t let her out for over a week. Not since the little ones came down with a fever again. So we left the house together, but then she deserted me in the streets. I think she must be with thy John Lindley. At least I think she must be. I can’t go back without her, unescorted, and she can’t go back without me.”

It sounded like something John would arrange. The scoundrel. It wasn’t as if he had business enough at headquarters to conduct! “How long has she been gone?”

“Nearly two hours.”

Two hours. Where could they go in two hours? In a city that was lined with pickets and defended by barricades? “Why did you agree to do it?”

“Because I didn’t want her to ask more questions about my visits to the jail.”

More
questions? “She knows?”

“About the visits? Aye.”

I felt exasperation spark in my veins, but there wasn’t time to press her about it. Where had they gone? Where would I go if I wanted to dodge an escort? And relish a few hours alone with a girl?

They were observing the footrace that had been set up between two battalions of light infantry. What other activity would allow a man to become
lost
with a maid along the river?

When we caught up with them, they were wrapped in an embrace near the northern defensive line, on the banks of the Schuylkill River. Hannah’s eyes widened as a blush enflamed her features. Fury firing my steps, I stalked toward them, grabbed a fistful of John’s coat and spun him away from the Pennington girl. “You stupid whoreson!”

“What are you doing?”

“What are
you
doing? Out here—alone—with one of the flowers—one of the most
recognizable
flowers—of our fair city?”

He gazed off beyond my shoulder. Toward Miss Pennington. “She’s a colonial! It’s not as if she’s some earl’s daughter.”

“No. It’s as if she’s Edward Pennington’s daughter, who is one of the colony’s most vocal . . . most
loyal
Loyalists. Officers have been made to marry girls for less than you have done.”

He paled.

“Aye: Marry!”

“I don’t . . . I mean . . . I didn’t think—”

“No. You didn’t. And it’s going to take the ingenuity of all of us to keep you from dire consequences.”

“Can no one believe that I didn’t mean any harm?”

“Not when it looks as if you did. Would you be out here like this with one of your English misses? With your own heiress?”

“Blazes no! And risk—?” He stopped speaking as shame colored his eyes.

“And risk having to marry one? Why should our colonial maidens be any less valued than your own?”

A flush lit the tops of his cheeks.

“Are they not worthy of the same respect you pay your English maidens?”

“You make me sound as if I’m a rake.”

He was. “You’re going to apologize to Miss Pennington, we’re going to go back into the city, and you are never going to do this again.”

We walked back, allowing John to return to headquarters as we passed it. Hannah and Miss Pennington accompanied me down to the King’s Arms. We were parting ways when a shout went up at the corner and a horse-drawn cart barreled toward us.

I pushed the girls out of the way but was struck by the animal as it passed. I fell to my knees, my hand plunging into one of the puddled ruts that scarred the streets before my arm collapsed and I rolled into it.

Hannah offered an arm to help me up, but I waved her off. “Go home. Back to Pennington House. I’m fine.” I suspected my ribs were bruised and my shoulder strained, but the biggest damage had been to my ego. I hadn’t had the balance to keep myself from falling. And now I was covered with filth.

“Thee’ve soiled thy hand!” Hannah informed me of the obvious while Miss Pennington covered her nose with a handkerchief. Of course I had soiled my hand. What man could fall on these streets and not soil his hand? But worse, I suspected that the slime had soaked through my coat to dirty my stump as well.

Any normal man would have been able to wash his hand. I could not. So I did the next best thing. Entering the King’s Arms, I grabbed up a cloth and, clamping it against my body, tried to rid my hand of the muck. It only succeeded in smearing the foul mess onto what was left of my bad arm.

“Let me help thee.” Hannah had followed me. She grabbed at the cloth, but I managed to hang on to it.

“I can do it.”

She looked at me directly for the first time since Sunday. “No. Thee can’t.”

I might have expected to find pity in her eyes, but there was only empathy. And stubborn determination. “There’s no shame in asking for help from others.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.”

She continued as if I had not spoken at all. “The only shame is that thee have not asked before.” She took hold of my stump and tugged. The cloth dropped to the floor.

“Now look what you’ve done!”

She turned toward the cook’s daughter, who was standing there, gawking. “I need a pitcher of water, please. A clean cloth and a basin.”

The girl did as she was asked while I protested Hannah’s attentions. “Don’t bother yourself with me.”

“If I don’t, then who will?” She didn’t seem to care what I thought about the matter. She’d already stripped me of my coat and was working at the button on my cuff. I could see Miss Pennington lurking at a window near the door. “Your cousin’s waiting for you. Shouldn’t you—?” I tried to pull my arm away from her.

She caught it in the vise of her grip before I could wrench it away. Cuff unbuttoned, she rolled up my sleeve. Then she poured water from the pitcher into the basin and motioned me over. “Come here.”

Did she want me to wash myself? Wasn’t it obvious that I couldn’t? It takes two hands to wash one. The ultimate of cruelties.

When I didn’t come, she took hold of my fouled hand and tugged me toward the basin. Plunging my hand into it with both of hers, she began to clean me. She delved into the intimate spaces between my fingers and then moved with her thumbs up toward my wrist. When she was done, she spread the new cloth out on the counter and wrapped it around my hand. Then she took up the basin, walked over to the window, and dumped out the filthy water.

Bringing the basin back, she poured more water into it from the pitcher. “Now then. The other.”

“The other what?”

She gestured toward my other side.

“My other . . .?”

Lips pressed into a firm straight line, she bullied my stump from my shirtsleeve by doing the same thing she’d done before—unbuttoning my cuff and pushing up my soiled sleeve. But this time she had to roll it all the way up to near my shoulder.

She dipped a cloth into the basin, wrung it out, and moved toward me.

I jerked away from her. “Don’t!” I didn’t want her to see it. I didn’t want anyone to see it. I tried hard not to look at it, myself. Not more than was necessary. Once in a great while I poured a full basin of water and swished the remnants of my arm through it. Seemed to do well enough.

She wasn’t listening. She never listened. She was looking at my stump through narrowed eyes. “There’s a wound here that would do well with an unguent.”

“An unguent?”

“Aye. To soften the scar.”

Soft or hard, it didn’t matter.

“Right here.” She placed a finger on my stump and softly stroked it.

It felt like the touch of a thousand angels. Gentle. Cool. It stilled, for once, that terrible ache that ricocheted back and forth between my fingers that were no longer there. Sweet relief, sweet reprieve. I wanted to beg her to continue, but I jerked my arm from her instead. “What does it matter?”

“It matters, Jeremiah Jones, because it would bring relief. Why would thee keep thyself in pain? It must distress thee.”

Miss Pennington ventured to set a foot inside the tavern. Squinted at us through the gloom. “Hannah? If we don’t get home soon . . .”

Though she looked up from her task, Hannah tightened her grip on me. “If we’re late, ’tis only because of thy foolishness, cousin. I’ll accompany thee home when I’m done.” With that she recaptured my stump and then she bathed it, a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me from shrinking away.

A hand on my shoulder. A touch on my arm. When was the last time someone—a woman—had touched me?

A memory teased at the edges of my mind. There had been a ball somewhere. A dance. A girl’s hand reaching out in flirtation. A light touch on my shoulder. A hand I’d captured in my own. I’d planted a kiss on that palm. I was certain of it. That’s what I would have done. That’s what I’d always done.

“A man ought to be able to do for himself.” It shamed me that I could not clean up my own messes.

“And a man can, admirably, when he acknowledges his own limits and asks those who know him to help him when needed. It seems to me the strength of a man is in knowing his weaknesses.”

“Weaknesses!”

“There is weakness in all of us, Jeremiah Jones. ’Tis only in denying, in despising it, that we succumb to it.”