Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (5 page)

Memory
whispered the butler's need to speak with her in private.
 
Premonition zinged through her.
 
"That doesn't sound like him."

"Not at
all.
 
He waved me over.
 
I ordered us a round.
 
He muttered, 'You realize they'll kill Madam
if they find it.' Before I could question him, the front door opened, and in
trotted my family's hellhound.
 
I exited
through the back door, hoping to gods he didn't see me."

David pushed up
from the couch and paced.
 
"'They'll kill Madam if they find it.' Any idea what Charles was
talking about?"

For my
safety
, David said.
 
His agitation,
so haunting and uncharacteristic, spilled onto her and gurgled around in her
stomach.
 
She shook her head.
 
"I think he plans to talk to me on the
morrow."

"Is
someone trying to kill you for money?"

She
swallowed.
 
"What a futile gesture
that would be."

"Sweetheart,
this feeling has niggled me for years, but tonight I cannot shake
it."
 
He pinned her gaze with
his.
 
"You're in danger
here."
 
His expression
tightened.
 
"Prescott is up to
something."

The old wound
in her heart ached.
 
She clenched his
hat, relaxed her fingers.
 
"Of all
people, he should know there's no more money."

"Damned
right, after wringing your estate of every last penny and throwing you the
husk.
 
And the worm bloody well better
keep his hands off you."
 
David
paced more and brooded.
 
"I've
never seen Charles drunk.
 
I had to make
certain you were well."

He hadn't yet
explained why he felt Wilmington was dangerous for him.
 
What — who — was "my family's
hellhound?"
 
Knowing David, he
might not tell her straight out.
 
She
brushed lint from his hat and kept her tone light.
 
"Where have you wandered since May?"

"Havana."

"Cuba?"
 
She stifled a laugh and sobered.
 
His expression told her he wasn't joking.

"My sister
and I chased Father there, hoping to talk sense into him.
 
He'd operated a spy ring out of our family
home in Georgia, printed sedition on his press.
 
The old man sailed to Havana to negotiate a deal between the
Continentals and the Spaniards.
 
There
it all exploded."

"Gods,"
she whispered in horror.
 
"Was he
executed for treason?"

"Oh,
no.
 
The redcoats bungled his
capture.
 
He escaped.
 
Major Ferguson nabbed him as a spy last
month on King's Mountain.
 
He was behind
British lines, a noose draped round his neck, when the rebels opened fire on
Ferguson.
 
Somehow his fellow rebels
didn't slaughter him.
 
I hear he's found
his way to Dan Morgan's camp.
 
Huzzah
for the old man!"

Helen had never
met Will St. James, but every step his son David paced in her parlor snagged
her heart with sorrow.
 
Her lips fumbled
for words.
 
"How it must break your
heart to know your father's in danger, but he isn't your responsibility.
 
You must let him go."

He stopped
pacing and faced her.
 
Firelight carved
the haunted shadows of a prey animal into his handsome face.
 
"When I went to Havana, I was judged by
the company I kept."

Her stomach
burned, and her eyes widened.
 
"Oh,
no.
 
The king's soldiers are hunting
you
."
 
After tracking him half a year, after the
stinging defeat at King's Mountain and unrelenting attacks from backcountry
rebels, the British Army wasn't amenable to straightening out such a mix-up.
 
With time and money invested in David, the
Army wanted his hanged corpse swaying in the wind, his face purple and tongue
protruding.

At least with
the Committee of Safety in Wilmington, the redcoats couldn't just storm through
the city and arrest David — Helen caught herself.
 
David's pursuit had followed him into the tavern that
evening.
 
Good heavens.
 
Another
British agent wandering
Wilmington in civilian clothing.
 
Dozens
of them could be slinking around town, each dressed as a civilian and thumbing
his nose at the rebel government.

"Yes,
they're hunting me.
 
My hellhound is a
redcoat, Lieutenant Fairfax.
 
You see
why it's prudent for me to make this visit short."

Her blood
heated.
 
Scant tenderness had she
received in her life, and David had provided most of it.
 
She stood and stamped her foot.
 
"You're exhausted.
 
Stay here and rest a day.
 
Everyone knows Enid and I are
Loyalists.
 
This is the last place a
rebel spy would hide."

"This
fiend, this parasite never gives up on a scent.
 
He tracked us to Havana."

"So he's a
prideful, pompous ass, eager for promotion —"

"No, you
haven't understood me!"
 
David's
expression went rigid.
 
"He tried
to violate my sister in East Florida —"

"Oh,
David, come now —"

"— and he
shot a friend, someone I've known my entire life, in cold blood in Havana.
 
Gods, Helen, listen to me, please believe
me!"

Still carrying
his hat, she went to him and gripped his hand in hers, hoping to convey calm
and safety, despite the alarm spiking her heart.
 
True, the British Army had its bad material — rank and file who
plundered, raped, and murdered.
 
But
never had she heard of a regular officer of His Majesty who'd committed the
vile acts of which David had spoken.
 
Rules of war: commissioned officers were of a different cut than the
men, supposedly even within the Continental Army.
 
Were solid proof of such a crazed officer's activities leaked to
the rebels' propaganda machine, any pretense of civility and protocol between
the rebel and Crown forces would evaporate.

Her heart
sank.
 
Weeks on the run had unhinged
David.
 
"Darling, I'm
listening.
 
You know I'm here for
you.
 
You're safe.
 
I've no traffic with rebels.
 
Your 'hellhound' cannot intrude in
my
house with the Committee standing in his way.
 
Stay here tonight.
 
Tomorrow
night, too.
 
You look like a wraith, for
heaven's sake."

His gray-eyed
gaze bored into her before his shoulders relaxed.
 
"I don't want to cause you more trouble, but I'm so damned
tired."

"Of course
you are.
 
Can you find safety outside of
Wilmington?"

"Yes, with
my sister."

"Back
home, in Alton?
 
Aren't they looking for
you in Georgia?"

"No,
Sophie, the other sister, the one who went to Cuba with me.
 
She's hiding among the Cherokee in western
South Carolina.
 
Her daughter, Betsy,
too."
 
Pride firmed his mouth
"I shall be a great-uncle before Yule."

Helen warmed to
his joy.
 
"You must be among family
when your niece delivers."
 
How did
it feel to belong to a family whose members sheltered each other?
 
How did it feel to share in the joy of
marriages and births?
 
Charles knew, as
did Enid and David.
 
"We shall see
you rested and fed, and after a few days set you back upon the road.
 
Where's your gelding?"

"In your
stable."

She tossed her
head.
 
"I sold my team years
ago.
 
If someone snoops, it will be
obvious that I've a visitor.
 
Enid shall
sneak him into Mr. Morris's stable and at first light board him in a public
stable."

"That's
far too much effort on your part."

"Hush."
 
In light of her persuasion, she sensed
resistance ebbing from him.
 
Good.
 
He sounded irrational, and she couldn't envision
his success at finding safety until he'd rested and recovered enough clarity to
not regard his pursuit in supernatural terms.
 
She suspected that he'd projected fears for his own safety onto her,
although concern did twinge her over the thought of Charles, inebriated and out
late at night.
 
"See here, it's
almost midnight, and you look ready to drop.
 
Let's get you up to bed.
 
Enid
will have the guest room prepared in five minutes."

"Guest
room?"
 
He reeled her against him,
his humor returning and impish.
 
"I'm not
that
tired."
 
A knife-edge appeared in his smile.
 
"Have you a lover upstairs abed waiting for you, cranky from the
time you've spent down here with me?"

Odd.
 
Had David grown jealous?
 
The only other man who spent the night under
her roof was Jonathan Quill, and he slept in her guest bedroom when he
visited.
 
David knew that.
 
She dropped David's hat on his head and
adopted a gruff tone.
 
"If you
share my bed, you must stay a second night so you can catch up on your
sleep."

"So you
can deprive me of a second night's sleep, eh?"
 
He kissed the palm of her hand.
 
"Madam, I agree to your terms."

Her hand in
his, she guided him toward the door.
 
At
the easel with her latest watercolor, he paused and pushed back the cloth.
 
"Yes," she said in response to his
grin, "More of my 'rocks.'"
 
She stored most of the paintings upstairs, out of sight.
 
Standing stones, barrows, and sacred wells
and their link to her religion made certain devout Anglicans in Wilmington
frown.
 
In her memory, she heard Silas's
reprobation:
pagan rubbish
.

"So this
is Midsummer dawn at Stonehenge, eh?"
 
David smirked.
 
"Where are
those druids?"

"Bickering
over whose belt has the finer gemstones, which foods to serve at feast, and
what ceremonial practices are appropriate."

"Alas, O
noble druidism.
 
Once a priesthood that
shocked Caesar with human sacrifice, now but a playground for the
aristocracy."
 
He winked at
her.
 
"Reminds me of the Congress
and Parliament."

Chapter Four

DAVID'S TONGUE
TRACED the curve of her shoulder blade, inviting Helen back from the precipice
of sleep.
 
Curled against him in bed,
she smiled through near-darkness and murmured, "Sleep, dear, or you shall
require a
third
night's rest before you leave."

"An
appealing thought."
 
His fingers
tickled her shoulder and roved down to stroke her breast.
 
"But you haven't answered my
question.
 
Why have you lost
weight?"

She yawned out
a half-truth.
 
"Oh, sometimes I
have so much business that I forget to eat."

He rolled her
onto her back, light from the single candle etching his frown.
 
"Helen, stop toying with me.
 
You and Enid have forgone meals.
 
You haven't enough money."

"Don't
let's quarrel about this again."

"People
need help from others every now and then.
 
Why won't you let me help you get through a tight time?"

She bristled.
 
Never again was a man going to purchase her.

"I'm not
asking you to cease writing and respond to my whims.
 
No, you have this inane notion that you should be able to do it
all yourself —"

"— I
should
be able to do it all myself!"

"Since
when
?
 
Let me confess a little secret.
 
Do you know why Prescott waived the final
fifteen pounds of your legal fees?
 
It
wasn't out of the goodness of his heart.
 
It was because I paid him off, and I told him to lie about it.
 
So you see, you haven't done it all yourself."

Indignation
churned her gut.
 
She shoved herself up
and glared at him.
 
"I cannot
believe you paid off my debt without telling me."

"Once, I
was dazzled by how well you held your head up and fought.
 
Lately I'm alarmed.
 
If you don't learn when to take, when to
bend a little, when you don't need to keep fighting, you're going to destroy
yourself.
 
Much as the way my father is
destroying himself."