Mistress Firebrand (25 page)

Jenny swallowed, the muscles in her slender neck working, and said, “What happened to you at Simsbury?”

“The usual sort of thing that happens in prisons compounded by Mr. Hallam’s superbly vicious enmity and the inhuman conditions of the mine.”

“I am sorry,” she said, “for all of it. I did not know what else to do. I could see no other course.”

“Necessity is a harsh mistress, as I have cause to know. But you didn’t do it for yourself. You did it for your aunt. I know that. In your position, I like to think I would have done the same, but I’m not certain of it. I was misguided then. I
would
do the same now. I
am
doing the same now. Or at least I am trying, because I am a little wiser at least than I was a year ago. Howe ignored my letters, my entreaties for aid. Three times he denied me, and I am no saint.”

“Then you are here for revenge.”

“No. Though the instinct glows hot, like a muse of fire. I am done with them. I’m here for you.”

“Then why not come to me in private, where we could . . . be ourselves?”

Oh, how he hated the uniform then. “Because I am being watched, and because I know what you have been about,
Cornelia
.”

All the color drained from her face now, but she hid it with a flourish of her fan and asked, “Who else knows?”

“No one, yet. That is why I came back. To ensure no one else finds out.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I must put the gifts of my calling to use one last time to make sure you are safe, and then I can take off this uniform—this costume—for good, and you and I can begin again.”

“No,” she said.

“No, what?”

“I won’t have you kill for me.”

“You did not scruple over it in the street that night.”

“That was different. You were defending our lives. What you are planning now is cold-blooded murder.”

Her mask was slipping, her smile fading, her voice rising. He could not risk discovery here.

“We must talk in private,” he said. “Meet me in the gardens tomorrow night.”

“Vauxhall is closed.”

“I’ll leave the hedge door unlocked. You know where the private boxes are. Come to me there, and I will explain everything.”

*   *   *

He had come back for her, and he was prepared to do murder for her. It would make a very good play.

It was not how she wanted to live her life. Entrapped in such a dark drama. It was not how she wanted him to lead his. He said he had changed, but if he intended to do this thing, he had not. He had only changed costume.

General Washington had warned her that she would hang if she was discovered. She had heard the talk, read about Burgoyne’s oath to execute the seditious scribbler and about Howe’s generous reward for the man’s capture. She had felt safe, because everyone assumed the writer had to be a man.

She was not safe at all.

Devere had not told her to make sure she was not seen—perhaps he hadn’t felt it necessary to belabor the obvious. She knew that their meeting must be secret.

It was easy now to understand why Angela Ferrers had sought out the Divine Fanny’s tutelage. Anyone could buy a wig or don a costume, but the art of impersonation relied on carriage and gesture and gait. Jenny entered her room Saturday afternoon as herself and emerged from it as Margaret, their part-time maid, in a brown linen gown with a white kerchief tucked into her neckline, a plain muslin apron, and her distinctive copper hair hidden by a black wig and tucked into the ugliest cap she could find. With a thin wool cloak that both entirely failed to keep out the cold and became quickly drenched with melting snow, she not only looked but
felt
the part.

She took the precaution of carrying a basket of washing with her as well, and set out on the long walk through the falling snow to Vauxhall. Huddled into her miserable excuse for a cloak and stooped against the wind, she received a second glance from no one.

When she reached the hedge that bordered the pleasure gardens, she panicked, because it was thickly covered in snow and she could not see the door, but she thrust her hands through in the place where she thought it had been. Her fingers met cold brick. She moved a little farther along the wall and tried again, and her fingers at last met cold iron and smooth wood, found the ring, and pulled.

Beyond was a fairyland covered in pristine snow, the paths deeper depressions in the blanket of white. She retraced their steps from the year before, stopping when she reached the manicured grove where the little private dining rooms were nestled in the snow-frosted trees. They were all identical: single-story garden follies with large windows, painted green doors, and rusticated masonry corners with Chinese fretwork galleries running around the top. The little structures were closed for winter but footprints in the snow, coming from the direction of the banqueting house, guided her to the right one.

She pressed her thumb to the latch and pushed the door open on surprising warmth. The room was heated by four small brass foot stoves, the Dutch kind, with coals glowing red and throwing splashes of light on the paneling. The furnishings were pushed to the walls, a table along one, four chairs along another, a caned chaise topped with a cushion tucked into a corner.

Devere sat in the window seat, one foot up on the bench, looking out at the snow. When she entered, he turned to look at her. He was not wearing his regimentals tonight and in the moonlight his face was full of relief and something else.

Joy.

“I was worried you would not come,” he admitted.

“Who can refuse a private invitation to Vauxhall?” she asked, setting down her basket of washing.

He smiled. “I wish that I could lay a banquet before you this time.”

She thought of the cake and his mouth on hers, and suddenly the little room felt very warm. She untied her cloak. He rushed to take it, but he was careful not to touch her. He draped it over the chaise and retreated to the window, his tall frame leaning against the embrasure.

“A banquet of sweets is not necessary, but I am grateful you have provided heat,” she admitted.

“I find I’ve grown less tolerant of cold places,” he said.

Like the mine, which had been her fault. “I am sorry for what you have suffered, Severin, but it’s all the more reason I don’t want you to embrace your former profession—not on my account.”

“I have never killed lightly—or for better reason. The man who threatens you bids fair to replace me, and he is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, like Angela Ferrers: ruthless, with few if any weaknesses.”

“But he does not yet know my name,” said Jenny. “Which would make killing him murder. An assassination.”

“He does not
yet
know your name,” agreed Devere. “He doesn’t even want Cornelia. He offered her to me, in a bargain. He wants the Widow’s New York contact. He wants your aunt, Jenny, so that he can discover everything she knows about Angela Ferrers.”

“Why?”

“Ambition. Something you and I can both understand. I chose this work because it promised quick advancement for men who can get results. I chose it
because it is one of the only ways for a man to succeed on his abilities alone, without the advantages of wealth or powerful friends. So has he.”

Devere continued softly. “Howe’s current adjutant general is
not
an able intelligencer. Stephen Kemble came by the job through interest and family connections. Kemble’s appointment was pure cronyism—made at a time when this was only a rebellion in Boston, and the fate of America did not hang in the balance—but he is General Gage’s brother-in-law, and so not easily displaced. André has already made the first move. He has supplanted me as indispensable during my absence—in the space of a few months. Now he wants to rise higher, to take Kemble’s place. It will be nearly impossible to deny him the job if he can capture the Widow.”

“
André?
Captain John André?”

“Yes.”

“Captain André paints scenery at the John Street and sometimes speaks the prologue, rather badly. He hardly seems an assassin.”

“No. He isn’t the sort to do his own killing, at least by preference. But he is a spy. A very skilled and very ambitious one. And he already has half the evidence he needs to hang you.” Devere drew a crumpled sheaf of papers from his pocket and placed it on the table.

She could just make out the words in the moonlight. “That is my manuscript,” she said. “How did he come by that?”

“Does it matter? It is in your hand. All John André needs is a sample to match it against. Your writing is distinctive. You must have had a very thorough tutor. You form your loops the same way, without fail, line
after line. You dot your
i
’s and cross your
t
’s with neat, short marks. I could attempt to make the case that this is a forgery, of course, but it will be a weak argument. Not something to hazard your safety on.”

“The last time I saw this manuscript, it was in the hands of my printer. A man trusted by Washington.”

“Who?”

“I never learned his name.”

“Describe him.”

She did.

“Rivington,” said Devere, decisively.

“No. That can’t be,” said Jenny. “Rivington used to print the Tory
Gazetteer
.”

“He is a double agent. He sells information to both sides, and each believes he is loyal to them while playing the other.”

“So he is a traitor.”

Devere shrugged. “Perhaps. And perhaps
not
. He has to give Howe something real from time to time. Cornelia’s manuscript is real, but useless, unless you have a suspect, handwriting samples to compare, and an expert to assess them. Until I returned a few days ago, Howe had no such expert readily to hand.”

Relief washed over her. “So as long as I do not put pen to paper and allow any samples of my writing to cross Howe’s desk, I am safe.”

“No,” said Devere. “You aren’t safe—certainly not until we discover who has my possessions. I ordered them sent ashore if I did not return to the
Boyne
. They should have gone to the King’s Arms and been held there for my return, but the trunk disappeared. Your letter to Burgoyne was in it.”

Her heart sank. “Did your things include all the movables in your cabin?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then the trunk will contain more than just my letter. When I took Burgoyne’s plans, I replaced them with a manuscript—a play I was working on—and disguised the substitution by placing the general’s cover page on top.”

“It is no matter. The letter alone is damning enough. More handwriting would not make the case any more persuasively.”

“It is not the handwriting. It is the content. The manuscript I left in your cabin has a decidedly Tory flavor, and the
Miles Gloriosus
is anything but that. Unfortunately, many of the jokes are the same. It seemed a shame to waste them.”

“I might have been able to cast doubt on the authenticity of the handwriting. Chancy, but possible. But if the content matches, Jenny, we have no hope of saving you that way.”

“Who might have your possessions now?”

“I don’t know. Possibly my man of business, who is—unfortunately and rather worryingly—missing. Possibly an agent of Angela Ferrers. Possibly no one of any importance at all. During the period since they were removed from the
Boyne
—and we can only assume that Hartwell followed my instructions in their entirety—the city has changed hands, twice, there has been a fire, and the staff at the King’s Arms has had to make many compromises to keep the place open.”

“Compromises,”
she said. “Like Bobby. He was a covert Son of Liberty before the Americans turned the theater into a hospital and threatened to arrest him for
entertaining loyalists, and now the army has treated him no better. He is not being paid for the use of the theater, only a weekly pittance for Mr. Dearborn’s services while Howe’s ‘players’ make free of the theater like it is a public house and tryst in the slots with their mistresses.”

Devere smiled and looked her up and down. “If they’re half as pretty as you, then I cannot blame them.”

“Some are far prettier. And all are better dressed. I borrowed this from our maid.”

“Was the smock from
The American Prodigal
not available?”

“
That
is a costume, and would look like one on the street.
This
, on the other hand, is making a game attempt to flatter with its
cut
and failing mournfully in its
cloth
. This is what a real maid looks like.”

“You’re a very good observer of people. If you hadn’t been an actress, you would have made an able spy. Although you are mistaken about the gown. It does most definitely flatter. It makes me wish I could find my missing impedimenta and with it those elusive French letters. I think it might be worth shaking down every fence and vendue master in New York to get hold of them.”

“There’s no need to go to quite so much trouble because on this occasion I’ve brought my own.”

It should not have surprised him at all: that this woman who had taken her future into her own hands time and time again would take
this
into her own hands. But it did.

And, God help him, he was eager as a boy for her to take
him
into her own hand and other softer places, but an unwelcome thought intruded. “And what, or
who
, in my absence, inspired you to go shopping for French letters?”

“Aunt Frances,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I told her that I’d decided that no man who wouldn’t consent to wearing one was worth bedding, and she said that if I truly felt that way I ought to have my own. She also opined they would only gather lint in my pocketbook.”

“Was she right?” he asked.

“Yes. For all the wrong reasons, of course. Are they really so awful to use?”

“I suppose that depends. If you are a man and intent solely upon your own pleasure, then they are a nuisance, particularly if you have . . . difficulties maintaining your . . . intention.”

“But your
intention
,” she said lightly, “your intention is unwavering, I should hope.” Flirting, as he had not been able to induce her to do in the kitchen that previous night.

“I would show you my intention,” he said, warming to the smile that kissed the corners of her lips, as he was about to do, “but first I would see these French letters.”

“They are of the highest quality, and new,” Jenny said, reaching under her skirt and pulling forth a little pocketbook, flame-stitched and tied closed with an embroidered ribbon. “Aunt Frances helped me select them.”

“Christ,” said Devere. “No wonder your parents didn’t want you to go off with her. Where did you procure them?”

“From an establishment in the Holy Ground run by an old friend of Fanny’s.”

“By ‘establishment’ you mean ‘brothel.’”

“I believe they also served suppers. I am by no means a lawyer, but if they have a victualing license, then that probably makes them a tavern.”

She unrolled the pocketbook and drew out a carefully folded onionskin. Inside were four sheaths, lying flat across the paper, all of the very thinnest lamb gut. They were finished with pink silk ribbons and decorated on the side with an illustration.

“Aunt Fanny advised you to choose illustrated ones, did she?”

“Yes. She said the fresh ink meant they were new.
And in any case, the plain ones had cheaper ribbons. I worried that they would tangle and knot. I supposed the pictures serve to reinforce the gentleman’s
intention
, should it waver.”

“My intention has been fixed for some time now. It’s my turn to see to yours.”

Her eyes widened and he leaned in to kiss her, first at the corners of her mouth, then full on the lips, then teasing her tongue out to play.

“My intention is fixed as well,” she said, coming up for air. “It has been since you served me cake on the end of your blade. And I
do
realize how that sounds.”

He laughed and caught her up in his arms. “I very much doubt your intention is sufficiently fixed,” he said, taking her fingers and running them over the sheaths. “These are papery and dry. For this to work, they have to be slick and wet.
We
have to be slick and wet. Starting with you.”

*   *   *

She had been told that the slender membrane she intended to put between them would dull his interest and her ardor, but that was not proving to be the case.

He backed her to the cushioned chaise and drew her down on it to lie within his arms. He kissed her, his tongue wet, like he promised her she would be, his hands unpinning, untying, unlacing in all the right places until she was wearing nothing but her chemise and her stays were loose and pushed down to expose her breasts. He folded her chemise back from these and lavished attention on her nipples, first with his palms, then with his thumbs, next with his mouth, suckling—until his teeth scraped lightly at them and her spine
was arching and her upper back coming up and off the chaise.

He shifted then to kneel at her side and reach between her legs: no preamble here, but a quick, successful search for her softness and slickness. She groaned when he found her and she thought that they were ready. “Now?” she asked, her hands groping toward the table and the pocketbook.

He grasped both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head. “Not yet,” he chided, using his other hand to spread the lips of her core and trace circles around her center.

“Yes, yes. Now,
now
,” she pleaded.

“No. But soon.”

He slid a finger into her and she sobbed.

“How soon?”

“You waited a year for me to come back. Now you cannot wait another minute longer?”

“For
this
,
Severin? No.”

*   *   *

He reached for the buttons on his breeches. He’d fantasized about teaching her to tie a French letter on him. Now he didn’t feel like teaching her anything except how to repeat his name in a dozen different tones of wanting.

Her hands traveled down his chest. They were lying close together on the narrow chaise, and he placed one foot on the ground to brace and steady himself. Her fingers stole over his, fidgeting busily at his buttons. He took her hand and put it where
he
wanted it.

She smiled, then took his free hand and placed it back between her own parted thighs.

He could not question her judgment in this matter. It seemed to him most excellent. Warm and wet and most excellent in every way, and even more so when she took a tentative grip on his shaft and thumbed the head.

The word that came out of his mouth belonged in alleys and whorehouses, and the very happiest of bedrooms. He groaned with the pleasure of her stroking thumb and fingered her in time, a game he could play only for so long.

“The sheaths,” he said at last, groping along the table beside the chaise until he found one and rolled onto his back, faced with a rampant erection and a suit of unfamiliar armor.

He had not checked them. They were not his own, though they were undoubtedly clean, new, and from the very best London maker. But they had voyaged across an ocean and passed through many hands. He brought the first up to his mouth and blew into it.

It filled like a balloon. “Oh, thank God,” he said.

Jenny, who was perched on her knees on the chaise now, was eyeing him as though he had gone mad.

“If they inflate, they are sound.”

“Fascinating,” she said with an impatient scowl. “Now are you going to put it on?”

“No,” he said, smiling now that that daydream, that fantasy was at long last becoming reality. “
You
are.”

*   *   *

She was flushed and breathless with wanting, and very much done with waiting, and the impossible man was lying there, shirt askew, breeches pushed down, member twitching, and
now
he wanted to give her lessons in furbelows.

“Aren’t you afraid that if I learn how to put them on, I might consort with other men? I’m a terribly quick study, you know.”

“No,” he answered, slipping his hand between her legs once more and sliding his fingers over her slick cleft, seeking out her nub—rubbing hard enough that it burned a little and kept her from tipping over the edge. “You won’t want anyone else. Not after I’m done with you.”

“Careful, or my next play will be
The Braggart Lover
.”

“It isn’t a boast if I make good on it.” He wrapped his hand around the base of his member and tilted it toward her.

She’d enjoyed touching him tonight, watching the play of reactions across his face, the way his breath hitched when her thumb circled the head, how his back arched and muscles flexed.

“Why are you so insistent that I do this?”

“Because you ought to know how, not least in the unlikely circumstance that you are disappointed in me tonight and compelled to seek another lover. If you don’t know how to use a sheath, all the more excuse for him to plead inconvenience and refuse. But quite apart from that, I want to feel you put it on me.”

He handed her the French letter. It fluttered, papery, ribbons streaming between her fingers, and she parted the open end and fitted it to the head of him. Then she grasped hold of the ribbons where they were sewn to the hem and drew them down his shaft, the delicate membrane sliding behind to ensheathe him. He groaned, very gratifyingly, and then used a number of choice words as she gathered up the ribbons, the ends dancing over his scrotum, and tried to tie a knot.

“A bow is best,” he said. “So it is easy to remove. But a knotted bow is better, to ensure it doesn’t slip off.”

His flesh was so different from any part of her body, so transformed, so obviously needy and sensitive that she hesitated to tie the bow tightly.

“That will slip free,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to cinch it.”

She started over, taking him at his word, tightening the ribbons until he said, “Just there. With the bow resting beneath. You’ll like the ribbons better there, I promise.”

He was as good as his word. He flipped their positions until she was lying on the chaise and he was kneeling over her. His sheathed member was pressing against her, sliding in her wetness, becoming slick and supple, teasing her nub and her entrance, one, then the other, until her hips lifted off the cushion, again and again, trying to capture him.

And then he was in with a wet pop, and she cried out in surprise. It was wonderful and incredible and too much and then suddenly quite painful.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have any pain.”

She scowled up at him. “As was
I
.” All of the wonderful and incredible had fled and she was left with a cold wet intrusion and could feel the folds of the sheath scratching her tender flesh. Now she could well understand why some people chose not to use them.

“Patience,” he said, sitting back on his heels while remaining still inside her. His hands settled over her knees, warm and caressing, then began to slide up her thighs, massaging the tight muscles there, and relaxing those where they were joined. Surprisingly—almost
miraculously—it began to feel good again, slick and warm once more, and when his fingers peeled back her lips around his cock and painted delicate circles around her button, she started to climb again toward climax.

He didn’t tease or prolong her ascent, just went directly for that goal she knew how to pursue on her own but had never experienced in company. She could feel the little ribbons fluttering between them, sticky with their joining, kissing the sensitive, stretched flesh of her entrance. When completion was inevitable, she wrapped her legs around his back and dug her heels into his buttocks and came, a little ahead of him, so she was holding him, and holding on to him, when he began to thrust frantically and the chaise leapt and skipped across the floor beneath them until at last he groaned and stilled.

In the sudden quiet she could hear his heart pounding in his chest. His hair had come loose from its ribbon and sweaty tendrils of it were plastered over her face.

New Brunswick Jenny would have asked for promises: marriage or at the very least financial support. But she had a purse full of gold coins, still growing, from her work as Cornelia, and freedom to love whom she might, so she simply allowed herself to lie there and feel close to him, to enjoy his warmth and the beauty of his finely made body.

While he was still hard inside her he grasped his sheathed cock at the base and withdrew, removing the French letter carefully and laying it on the table. He kissed her one more time, then got up from the chaise, took one of the little pottery bowls stacked on the table, and knelt in the window seat and opened the sash.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, as the cold air blew over her.

“Practicalities,” he said, scooping up a bowl of snow and closing the window. He set it atop one of the stoves and it melted instantly. He dropped the condom into the water and returned to the chaise. “They are difficult to wash if you allow them to dry,” he explained.

She hadn’t thought of that, but it wasn’t the only practicality they had to consider.

“What are we going to do about André?” she asked.

Devere returned to the chaise and lay down beside her.

“This seemed more commodious earlier,” he remarked of the narrow cushion.

“That is because you are easily distracted. I am not. Tell me about André. How close is he to finding out about Aunt Frances and me?”

“That is difficult to say. Like me, he has spent the last year in captivity. He is only just arrived in New York. I am the best lead he has for catching her, but he will certainly be pursuing others. The footpads sent to kill us that night, the men who watched the docks and reported on my movements, the ones who helped the Widow to smuggle me out of the city—all are liabilities so long as André lives. And somewhere out there are your letters and your manuscript, enough to damn you.”

“But he has left Cornelia to you. So it is only Aunt Frances we need worry about.”

“Would she consider leaving New York?” asked Severin.

Jenny thought about their little household on John
Street. “You were right, of course, about her illness. She is dying. But she is happy here. Fairchild is living with us.”

Devere’s expression clouded. “Would that I had been here to prevent that. I fear I have failed my oldest friend.”

“They don’t share a bed,” said Jenny. “Fairchild had a trundle built for her room.” Her chest felt tight thinking about it. “I can hear them, reading to each other and talking late into the night. I think your friend is the very best of men.”

“You’ll find no disagreement from me,” said Devere. “He acted the part of brother to me at school when my own flesh and blood did not. Julian made it clear to the other boys that I was a by-blow and that made me fair game for abuse.”

“I am sorry,” said Jenny. “I have four brothers. I can imagine your plight all too well.”

Devere smiled wryly. “English public school conditions might beggar even your imagination. Courtney put a stop to it. And he invited me home at the holidays, gave me a family to replace my unhappy one.”