The Turncoat (16 page)

It was a decision he would regret all of his days, no matter which way he chose.

In the end he tied Angela Ferrers to the chair beside the bed, gagged her, and locked the door behind him.

*   *   *

T
he hour was long past Howe’s curfew and Market Street should have been deserted, but the pavement teemed with horses and men, and the windows of Howe’s mansion blazed with light.

Bay met him on the steps of the house. “Good God, Peter. What did you do to antagonize André?”

Tremayne stiffened. “Why? What’s happened?”

“André needled Donop about his folly with the Merry Widow at Mount Holly. Then Donop went off spoiling for a fight and picked an argument with Howe and Howe gave Donop his wish. He’s leading the attack on Mercer. Tonight. Now. And you’re going with him.”

“Why me? There’s no use for cavalry on that ground, and I’m no engineer.” But he knew why before he said it. Because André wanted him out of the way so he could deal with Kate—to arrange another accident, this one fatal.

“You reconnoitered the fort last week, and you speak French. You’re to be the count’s interpreter. But you’re going because André wanted it. I did tell you to toady to the man. But you’ve gone and wounded his vanity somehow, and so he’s cooked up this piece of nastiness for you.”

There was no way to tell Bay
why
André had cooked up this particular nastiness: that he wanted Tremayne out of the city to be free to dispose of Bay’s fiancée. But perhaps Bay could protect Kate, if he thought André posed another sort of danger. “It was Lydia,” he said, her false name thick on his tongue. “André spiked her drink and tried to get her alone.”

Caide snorted. “André? Don’t you know, Peter? She’s not his type.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because
I
am his type. Don’t look so shocked, Peter. Everyone does it at school, then pretends later that no one does it at all.”

“Does Howe know?”

“I expect so. Howe has his own peculiarities, so he’s disinclined to throw stones. In any case, André is nothing if not discreet.”

“Bay, I don’t know why he was trying to get her alone, but it was for no good purpose. Keep her away from him.”

“You don’t know Lydia. She’s more than a match for the little Huguenot, whatever he’s up to. I’m off to deliver the orders for the bombardment to the
Augusta
. Supposedly they’ve cleared two of the chevaux out of the river. Enough to plot a course around the obstructions and warp through on tow lines, if the tide is right. Or run aground and miss the fort altogether. For God’s sake, Peter, be careful out there. I don’t care what the oddsmakers say. Howe’s sending a thousand men to take a fort that could swallow twice that number. It’s going to be Breed’s Hill all over again.”

Bishop and rook. André was clearing the board to take the queen, to take Kate. Removing Tremayne, and removing Caide.

Tremayne felt desperate. “I can’t go with Donop. I’m supposed to be searching for the Merry Widow.”

“Yes, you were. But tonight you are ordered to Mercer with Donop. André has taken against you, Peter. If you fail to report, he’ll have you arrested for desertion.”

He was outmaneuvered. And Kate…Kate was alone, and helpless. He could not return for her now, could not spirit her away to safety.

Caide misinterpreted his expression. “Cheer up, Peter. You’ll be back in two days. The Widow will keep until then. And you won’t have to hunt her alone. I’ve hired you a beater to flush her out.” Bay pitched his voice to the street behind him. “Bring Lord Sancreed’s horse.”

In the crush of men and drays filling the street, Tremayne’s chestnut mare was unmistakable. So was the young officer who held her: Phillip Lytton.

Eight

Philadelphia, October 21, 1777

A canopy floated overhead. Hers at Grey Farm was white. This one was blue. Kate closed her eyes, then opened them again. It was still there. She must be at the Valbys’, then. Devout Friends were not given to voicing profanities, but she had learned a number of choice oaths since coming to the City of Brotherly Love, and she swore them now in the privacy of her mind, and wished herself home at Grey Farm, where the scuffed floors would not show the stains from what she was about to do.

She threw back the Valbys’ fine chintz counterpane and vomited over the side of the bed. It had the feeling of finality to it. She did not think she would be sick again, if only because there was nothing left in her stomach. At least the carpets here were not hers to beat clean.

She’d been so stupid, so besotted with Peter Tremayne that she’d drunk poison from his hand. The man had a knack for throwing her off balance. Whenever she encountered him, practical Kate Grey of Grey Farm fled, and she was not replaced by cunning Lydia Dare, agent of the Merry Widow. She was replaced by a dunderhead who made terrible mistakes.

Like turning to him for help.

She’d had no reason to hope for his assistance, but she’d obeyed some instinct that told her to reach out to him in her extremity. They’d met only twice since his return to Philadelphia, and neither meeting could have been termed a success. Just moments before she was stricken, she’d misjudged his mood and appealed to him with a bit of imbecilic coquetry for which she’d been instantly ashamed. He’d turned on his heel and left.

And then saved her life. She was alive because of a man she should count as her enemy.

Or at least she was half alive. And some drama had unfolded here while she was unconscious. The patterned curtains at the foot of the bed were torn, and shreds of knotted blue chintz hung from the arms of the chair beside her bed.

Whoever had been here, whatever had transpired, Tremayne had seen her safely through the night. Now she must see herself safely through the day. Because he had promised to come back for her. And she had made her decision. Lydia Dare’s career as a spy was over. When Peter returned, it would be Kate Grey who would leave with him.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed but when her feet touched the floor, her legs buckled under her. She crawled to the washstand. There was fresh water in the pitcher, and tea—a luxurious concession to her infirmity—and sugar by the kettle. She grasped the cool iron pot stand and pulled it to the edge of the brick, extracted a warm coal from the brass box nestled against the fireback, kindled a small blaze, and lay down to rest on the floor.

The morning passed in a series of similar battles with the weight of the kettle, the brightness of the sun, the chill of the washbasin. Every completed action was a tiny victory.

Mrs. Valby knocked on her door twice, and asked in a worried voice if she was feeling well. Kate called back to her, claiming a headache caused by overindulgence. She knew better than to endanger the Valbys by sharing confidences with them.

Finally, at noon, she was clean and dressed, with a stomach full of sweet tea and a delicate equilibrium that suggested she unlock the door and attempt the stairs,
slowly
.

By the time she reached the bottom, her knuckles were whiter than the ivory cap of the newel post.

She went straight to the henhouse, punched two holes in an egg, blew the contents out, and slipped a tightly rolled note inside. The egg she marked with a cross and placed at the back of the top shelf where Angela Ferrers knew to look for it. Then she returned to the house and ordered the maids to wash her blue silk petticoat and hang it immediately up to dry in the garden.

It was her signal flag. The Widow, or one of her agents, would see it and come for the message in the egg. Howe and André and their minions were wise to invisible inks, experienced in cracking codes, expert at interrogation, but they could not, if their lives depended on it, imagine that anything normally found in the henhouse or laundry could be important. It was a failing Kate had determined to use against them.

Even the short trip to the garden had tired her, but she knew she mustn’t spend the day in bed. There might be talk, and talk, when you were a spy living under an assumed name, could prove fatal. So she forced herself to join Mrs. Valby in her bedroom for an hour of sewing. Despite the older woman’s stream of pleasant chatter, Kate had to fight to stay awake, jabbing herself with her needle whenever she started to nod off.

When the doorbell rang in the early afternoon the maid brought her a note from a gentleman who, she said, was waiting on her answer. The card was unsigned, but the writer desired an audience with her to tender his apologies for last night.

It could only be Tremayne.

Kate hurried to the parlor and made a hasty attempt to improve her appearance, but she quickly realized that nothing would put roses into her pallid cheeks, and chose a seat by the hearth so she might at least borrow the glow from the fire.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Her caller, when the door opened, was not Tremayne.

It was John André.

*   *   *

S
he is a keen hunter and an excellent shot,” Donop said of the Merry Widow, as they marched through the Jersey woods at the head of the Hessian column. “As well as a beauty,” he added, eyeing his companion challengingly.

Tremayne had had no choice but to come. He could not help Kate from a deserters’ prison. His only option was to join Donop on this debacle and pray that Angela Ferrers had not escaped her bonds last night to take a warning to the Rebels; that Fort Mercer remained undergarrisoned, and would surrender without a fight. The sooner the business was done, the sooner he could return to Kate. Lytton trailed silently behind them, and Tremayne hoped he did not speak French.

“The Merry Widow is a known agent of foreign powers, in the pay of the French most likely. You can’t keep her with you if you’re attached to the army,” Tremayne reasoned.

“What,” Donop asked, “is the point in being a count if I may not do as I please? The lady shall get no intelligence through me, and she shall be too well occupied on her back to make other mischief. If there is difficulty with your government, then I shall marry her and there will be an end to it.”

“She is hardly a suitable countess.” Nor was Kate.

“I thought, Lord Sancreed, that your ancestor was a famous Leveller. You have not inherited his egalitarianism.”

“That was my cousin Bayard’s forbear, not mine, and he paid dearly for his principles. He was drawn and quartered and stripped of his lands and title. That is why I hold Sancreed and not Bay. You, on the other hand, are not an egalitarian. You’re just pigheaded on the subject of this woman.”

Donop laughed, the short, sharp bark of delight that Tremayne was coming to recognize as characteristic of the man, whose gusto was infectious. “Hah! Maybe so. Your cousin strives to regain his ancestor’s status through arms. Caide is a famous name. His uncle amassed a great fortune and attempted to buy back the title and disinherit you, did he not?”

Tremayne was not surprised by the count’s depth of knowledge. With its fractious, fractured peerages and patchwork states, the German aristocracy had an insatiable appetite for genealogy and disputed successions. Tremayne spared a glance to be sure Lytton was not paying attention, then said, “Bay does not share his late uncle’s obsession with Sancreed. There is no enmity between us over the title. We were raised together.”

“Still, I always thought it peculiar that his uncle should labor and politic to reclaim the title, when he had no son to pass it on to.”

Tremayne treated Donop to a frosty silence.

“I have trespassed. Forgive me, Major,” Donop said.

“Howe refused your request for more guns.”

The count allowed the subject of Tremayne’s family tree to drop without further comment. “Your general meant to provoke me into disobeying him. He thinks we Germans are cowardly and weak, and that without every convenience of war, we will cower in Philadelphia. But we will show him otherwise.”

He’d pitched the last to be heard in the column behind them. His Jaegers, the elite Hessian riflemen, cheered. Donop waved his showy Hessian tricorn. The peridot on his cockade winked in the sunlight—and shattered into a thousand glittering fragments.