The Turncoat (27 page)

Grey said nothing for a long time. Then finally, “Any arrangement you wish to make must be with my daughter, not me.”

So Grey would not pimp his daughter, but he was a political animal, and would not scorn her if she became Tremayne’s mistress. Well and good. The family might need a friend on the right side of the law when peace was concluded.

Tremayne knew he ought to feel some satisfaction. This was what he wanted. Kate for his own. He had not succeeded in sending her to her father and safety, but he would have her in his bed tonight. In the morning she would have no choice but to accept his protection. But all he felt was self-loathing and disgust. Which was why he suddenly said, “I care for her.”

“If I didn’t believe that,” Arthur Grey said quite softly, “I’d have shot you at Haddonfield.” Then the little boat was swept out into the current. It carried no light, because it had no business being there, and before Tremayne could frame a reply, it disappeared into the night.

Sergeant Bachmann waited on the back porch of the little cottage, drinking whisky from a flask. The Hessian held it up wordlessly and Tremayne took a swig, grateful for the liquid courage. Then he mounted the stairs and let himself in the back door of the small, neat house where Kate Grey waited for him, and where he intended to break every promise he had ever made her.

*   *   *

K
ate was staring into the fire when he returned. She didn’t dare look at him or he would see her weakness, might carry her bodily down to the dock and recall her father’s boat.

“He treats you like a man,” Tremayne said. “I suppose that is the way of men without sons.”

“He treats me like an equal,” she said, relieved that her voice did not betray her. “But I have noticed you are inclined to confuse the two.”

“Not so,” he countered. “I treat very few people as equals. Sex doesn’t signify.”

“What does then?”

“Courage, which you have, and kindness. Loyalty, which you inspire. Honesty, which has been in somewhat short supply between us.”

“You tricked me into coming here. You’ve no right to expect honesty from me.”

“Don’t I? I won’t pretend my intentions were honorable at Grey Farm, but you and your aunt lied to me, trapped me, damned near got me hanged. And you’ve been lying to me ever since.”

“I didn’t lie to you at Grey Farm.”

“You split hairs with extraordinary delicacy. That’s how you reconcile your pacifism with your espionage, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t steal your plans. By the time I knew it was done, you were already gone. I was going to wait for you to return, explain that it wasn’t me and…”

“And offer up your body as proof of your lies,” he finished for her.

“That’s not how it would have been.”

She could barely see him for the tears blurring her vision, but she felt the air move and knew he was coming for her. His arms were around her before she broke down and sobbed.

“No,” he said. “That is not how it would have been.”

She felt safe and warm in his arms and so she let the tears come, as he whispered soothing nonsense in her ear. When the wracking spasms subsided, he said, “Let me call your father back.”

“No. I don’t want to leave.” But she wasn’t sure if she was talking about Philadelphia, or Tremayne’s arms. She reached up and drew his face down to hers. She felt hot, thirsty, desperate, and she did not want to think. She brushed her lips against his. They remained closed. She tested the seam with her tongue, pressed, then found entry.

He gave in and kissed her, his tongue diving into her mouth, his hands in her hair and at the small of her back. She knew a sudden rush of exultation. She’d never been the aggressor before, but now suddenly she discovered that she held the same power over him that he held over her. She could make him want her.

He pulled away, gasping. “Kate, you don’t have to choose between this and your safety. You don’t have to stay here for me. There is another boat. I’ll take you to your father. In the spring, when this madness is done, I’ll come to you.”

Kate didn’t want words and promises, and she didn’t believe she had a future beyond this winter. There was only now. She fitted her body to his, sighed when she felt the evidence of his arousal pressed against her belly.

“Stop, Kate. Or we’ll end up on the floor, and I’ll do this all wrong.”

She couldn’t imagine how to do it wrong, only how consummation would somehow sever her from the decision she had just made, divide now from then, put decision and need both firmly in the past, allow her to go on.

He grasped her wrists and held her at arm’s length. “This is shock, Kate. The aftermath of great emotion. It is not how we should begin our affair.”

He backed her to the armchair she’d been sitting in earlier and pushed. She fell onto the cushion in an undignified tangle of skirts and petticoats, but the tortured expression on his face told her that her dishevelment was alluring, that her bruised lips and exposed ankles tempted him. He looked down at her and ran his hands through his hair; tension was plain on his face. She started to rise from the chair.

He groaned in exasperation and backed away. “Wait here.” He left the room and returned a few seconds later with a flask, rummaged in the pretty china cabinets beside the fire for glasses, and poured her a dram of whisky. She drank it. Desire fled.

Exhaustion replaced it. And desolation. “You must have planned this rendezvous with my father days ago. You never meant to seduce me tonight.”

“You sound almost betrayed.”

“I came rather overdressed for a rowboat.” And she felt foolish.

He smiled at that, and took the chair opposite her, his long legs stretched before the fire to cross with hers, his empty glass dangling from his fingertips. “You’re also overdressed for the other options available to us.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. The man blew hot and cold. She’d just offered him that and he’d demurred. Besides, it felt oddly companionable, just sitting here with him, and she found herself starved for companionship.

He leaned across the distance between them, removed her glass, and took both her hands in his.

“Shall we make love, Kate?”

Her voice caught in her throat. Heat bloomed in her. He could have had her already, but he’d refused. He could have told the court-martial in New York about her, but he’d refused. He could have turned her over to André at Germantown, but he’d refused. And he’d risked his life to bring her father here.

They had talked of making love, but never of falling in it. She knew better than to speak of it now.

“Why didn’t you want me a few minutes ago?” She suspected, but she had to know.

“I did want you. Desperately. But not unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly.”

They were not part of the Quaker order of service, but she’d attended English weddings since coming to Philadelphia, knew where Peter’s words came from, and what he was trying to tell her. He was not offering her marriage, but he didn’t want her in a mindless frenzy, or for just one night.

“I need a moment alone first,” she said. In her mindless frenzy she had almost forgotten.

He quirked an eyebrow.

“Mrs. Ferrers advised me to take precautions,” she explained.

Tremayne sighed. “I can only imagine what she told you to do.”

“No imagination is necessary. It’s an entirely prosaic item,” she said, drawing the small wooden box from the practical pockets she insisted on beneath even her most impractical gowns. She held it up in the palm of her hand.

He removed the lid. “Have you used one of these before?”

“Of course not. But the theory seems sound.”

He capped the box, then covered her hands with his own. “Put it away. You don’t need it. There are other ways.”

“Yes. But the other ways all depend entirely on your goodwill.”

“And have I ever given you reason to doubt it?”

“Mrs. Ferrers says—”

“I’m not making love to Mrs. Ferrers, at the moment. I intend to make love to you. Is it so impossible for you to trust me?”

She swallowed. “I want to.”

“Kate, I’m not placing my pleasure ahead of your safety. I know how those things are prepared. Boiled in vinegar and soaked in brandy, yes?”

“It makes sense if you think about it. Nothing grows in a pickle jar.”

“And have you ever gotten vinegar or brandy in a cut on your hand?”

She was beginning to see his point. “Mrs. Ferrers said I probably won’t bleed. I’m too old.”

“She is a font of knowledge on the subject, I’m sure, but since we are being indelicate, I can tell you from experience that age alone does not ensure that it will be painless for you. Even if you don’t tear, you’ll be sore, and removing the thing once we’re finished might make the occasion memorable for you in an entirely different way than I intend.”

“Oh.” She subsided into her chair. Speaking so frankly of such intimate matters with Tremayne was bizarre, and somehow quite natural. “But I’ve brought nothing else.”

“We don’t need anything else. I can withdraw.”

She said nothing.

“You don’t need to rely on my goodwill in this. A child would be equally inconvenient for me as for you. Charming as you are, I will manage to control myself. I’m not an overeager schoolboy or a loutish farmhand.”

“I want to trust you—”

“—but you have not been able to trust anyone for a very long time. I know. Trust me, now.”

He held out his hand.

She took it. She felt very small beside him as they crossed the cozy parlor together and ascended the stairs.

It was an old house, like Grey Farm, but far more fashionable. The stamped wallpaper upstairs was fresh, delicately colored and pleasingly classical. The carpets were thick and bright. A fire was ready to be lit in the largest bedchamber, and Kate fleetingly thought of Bachmann, Tremayne’s loyal Hessian, camped downstairs. Not the po-faced conspirator she had imagined, perhaps, but what must he think of her, his master’s lover? She put it from her mind.

She’d realized in the first few weeks of her adventure in Philadelphia that no matter what the outcome of the war, she had transgressed. There would be no place in polite society, neither the learned salons of Philadelphia nor the forgiving parlors of Orchard Valley, for a woman who bartered her body for secrets. It was simply too sordid.

But this bedroom, borrowed though it was, was not sordid. It was the private retreat of proud parents. There were penmanship and embroidery samples on the wall, framed and hung with care. In the corner was the dressing table of a lady fine enough to receive visitors during her toilette, but not so fine as to banish the toys abandoned beside her chair: the cup and ball, the hoop and stick some toddler must have chased around the room just before they were forced to flee the house.

The bed was hung with cream wool and crewel embroidery. It was decades out of date but well cared for and obviously much loved. A fitting place to part with her innocence.

But now that she was in the room, she had no notion what to do. It had all seemed so easy in her bedroom at Grey Farm, when he had taken the lead, and even downstairs, less than hour ago, when she’d rushed headlong at him.

“I don’t know how to begin,” she said.

There were logs laid on, and a tinderbox. He knelt beside the hearth. “
Beginning
has never been our problem. It’s seeing the deed through that has eluded us. I half expect someone to start pounding on the door at any moment.”

She laughed, and he smiled up at her, and Kate realized that for tonight at least she would put her faith in him. Then he lit the fire. The next step, she knew, was to disrobe, but these were not the practical garments she’d grown up in. Her gown fastened in front, but the lacings of her stays required a maid’s assistance. Or a lover’s. She found herself blushing furiously, and when she looked up, he was draping his fine red coat over the back of a chair, removing his silver gilt gorget and leather neck stock, and placing them carefully on the dressing table.

He smiled when he realized she was watching him. “You’re blushing. Do you like watching me undress?” he teased, unfastening the buttons on his waistcoat.

Her mouth felt dry. The elegant flourishes of his uniform were not just for the benefit of the guard; they were for her. The silver buttons on his coat and Mechlin lace at his cuffs. The sweet lime and rum cologne. They were to entice her, to please her.

How shockingly adult it all was. She’d been living among strangers under an assumed name and committing treason for months, had experienced a taste of intimacy with Bayard Caide, but only now, to her surprise, did she feel anything like a grown woman.

She forced herself to swallow. The room was warming quickly. Or maybe that was her own body. “Yes,” she said. “I want to see your hair down.”

“Yours first, I think,” he said, gently freeing the tortoiseshell combs and laying them beside his gorget on the dresser. They formed an intimate still life, her ornaments lying beside his regalia. Then he threaded his hands through her hair, unwinding the elaborate coils and loosening the tight curls, until it fell free over her neck and shoulders.

She closed her eyes, and felt his lips brush against hers, slow and patient, not seeking entry, only contact, until her mouth opened of its own accord and their tongues met.

When he finally broke away she felt dizzy. Everything around her, the carpets, her gown, the very air, felt cushioned and cloud light, as though she could float away.

She watched him shrug out of his waistcoat and fold it neatly. She tried to unhook the front of her gown, normally the work of a few moments, but the hooks kept slipping from her clumsy fingers.

“Let me help.” He covered her hands with his own and brought them to his lips for a brief kiss, then lowered them to her side. He made quick work of the hooks on her bodice, then untied the tapes cinching her skirts, and when both were open, he took her hands and steadied her as she stepped out of the circle of pooled silk.

He fingered the laces on her stays. “May I?”

She nodded, her heart pounding. He turned her to face the glass of the dressing table. She could see him, darkly handsome, standing behind her, the scarred side of his face lost in shadows, his eyes on hers in the mirror, his hands invisible but busy at her back. She was breathing in shallow gasps, the rapid rise and fall of her chest clearly visible in the glass.