Mistress Firebrand (29 page)

It was one thing, though, to disagree with a fellow commander, to make a tactical decision not to reinforce him and instead march your army south to capture the capital, arrest Congress, and end the war in
one fell swoop. It was another to do so after hanging the man’s mistress.

“I disagree,” said André. “You cannot interrogate and hang a general’s mistress
publicly
. Done quietly, no one will be the wiser, not even Burgoyne.”

“If nothing else,” said Severin Devere, with a pointed look at the door where the beautiful Elizabeth Loring had stood only moments before, “that would set a terrible precedent.”

Howe looked Devere in the eyes, but it was John André to whom he spoke. “I thank you for your diligence, Captain,” he said. “But Colonel Devere is the more experienced in these matters, and I believe his judgment to be correct.”

It meant that Severin had guessed right. André had told him that he had identified one of the Widow’s associates, a person—a woman, as it turned out—who was too well placed to touch. Howe could not hang Burgoyne’s mistress lest someone press to hang his own. And he was too sentimental, too honorable, to shoulder that risk. Now the trick was getting Jenny well away before Burgoyne disclaimed her.

“Only,” said André, unwilling to surrender the field, “if she
really is
General Burgoyne’s mistress, and not just the colonel’s doxy. You can hardly keep her pent up in the Sugar House for months until we find out.”

“What do you propose?” Howe asked.

“General Burgoyne has asked for field pieces and men to replace those he has lost. Send the girl north with a small detachment and a few guns. A single understrength company should suffice. The gesture will defray any criticism that you have failed to support Burgoyne’s Albany campaign, and if the girl is indeed his
mistress, he can decide what to do with her. And if she is
not
 . . . then Burgoyne can hang Cornelia out of sight of Tory society in New York, where her status as a popular actress would cast you in the part of the villain.”

Now it was André who had struck a chord with Howe, who was already concerned for his reputation with the Americans, a people who had so loved his older brother they had paid for a monument to him in Westminster Abbey after his heroism in the French and Indian War. A people in which he himself found much to admire—beyond Sultana’s obvious charms.

“Make the arrangements,” said Howe.

“That means a three-hundred-mile journey over half-made roads for a girl who has been bred to town life,” said Devere. And he could not rescue her from an entire company himself, understrength or not.

“If her safety concerns you, Colonel,” said André, “then I suggest you go with her.”

That would suit André, who was clearing the board for his own advancement. First Devere, then the inadequate but well-connected Stephen Kemble.

“And what will Burgoyne say when she turns up missing her fingernails?”

“What is this?” asked Howe sharply.

“André has given her to Caide’s dragoons to play with in case she can tell them something useful, like the name of her printer. It’s Rivington, by the way. There are easier ways to get a woman to talk than abusing her.”

“Where is she now?” demanded Howe.

“At the Middle Dutch Church, where Caide has stabled his horses,” said Devere, adding, “Lord Fairchild is with her. You may remember that he was a
close friend of her aunt, who has just passed away, Frances Leighton.”

André was wise enough to allow this to pass without comment. The general loved the theater, and his fondness for the Divine Fanny was well-known.

“That is sad news. My condolences to the major, and the girl. But she is to be sent to the Sugar House,” said Howe. “And thence north. Captain André will make the arrangements. You are free to make the journey as well, Devere.”

It was a reprieve, but it would only be death deferred if Devere could not think of something. Because once they reached Albany, Burgoyne would surely hang her.

Jenny knew that the pain in her chest was grief, but it felt just like having the air knocked out of her lungs during the riot at John Street. Aunt Frances was gone.

Courtney Fairchild would let no one near her on the walk to the Middle Dutch Church, which smelled like a stable. Caide’s dragoons were using it as both a barracks
and
a riding school. Because Fairchild would not leave Jenny’s side—and since he was a lord and an officer on Howe’s staff, they could not lock him in what amounted to a paddock—they instead locked them both in the vestry. But not before Jenny and Fairchild encountered a hulking junior officer with hooded eyes and a vicious smile. Dyson
.

“What kind of a name is that?” Lieutenant Dyson asked, sounding altogether too interested. “Jennifer.” He rolled it around on his tongue and Jenny felt icicles down her spine. “Is that Cornish?”

“It is
Miss Leighton
to you,” said Courtney Fairchild.

“Just as you say,” agreed Dyson.
“Milord.”

Jenny did not like the way this man moved. Not clumsy or lumbering, as his size might warrant, but like a hunting cat stalking its prey. He circled Jenny and Fairchild, seemingly intimidated by neither her protector’s rank nor title.

“Pretty hair too,” he observed, his heavy-lidded regard unsettling. “What color would you say that was, Miss Leighton? Red, I’d say, or reddish.” Dyson might have made a fine stage villain, or villain’s lackey, but Jenny knew with sinking dread that this man had no range; he had in fact
become
the part.

He reached out to touch a lock of her hair. Jenny shrank back and Fairchild’s hand shot out.

“Enough, Dyson.” The officer who had entered the wrecked church was tall, fair haired with blue eyes, and remarkably handsome in a disheveled, louche sort of way—but Jenny did not like the look of him either. He now nodded to acknowledge Fairchild. “Courtney.”

“Call your dog off, Caide,” Courtney responded. “The girl is my mistress’s niece, and I’ll kill any man who lays a hand on her.”

“Fair enough,” said Colonel Sir Bayard Caide, although he did not seem to care very much one way or another. “
Understood
. I have no interest in the girl myself. André asked to borrow my barracks
and
my man Dyson, and I was happy to oblige. But I’m not partisan enough to meet anyone at dawn in a dispute over the details.”

That was when Caide offered them the vestry and locked them in.

When they were alone, Jenny said, “I am so very
sorry for all of this. It is my fault. If I had never written to Burgoyne, she would still be here.”

Fairchild’s face, always so boyish, looked drawn, haunted. “Never apologize for your choices, or your ambition, Jenny. It is a quality you take from Frances. If you had not been talented and ambitious, she would never have come back to America for you, and she and I would never have met.”

“What will you do now?” she asked.

“First, I will see you free of this place and settled as Frances would have wanted.”

“Major Fairchild, I am guilty. I
am
Cornelia. André has irrefutable proof. I do not see how there is a way out for me.”

“Severin Devere is resourceful. You’ve no idea. He will think of something.”

It was a pleasant fantasy. She would pretend to believe it for now. “And then what will you do?” she asked.

“I shall call John André out, and I will kill him.”

*   *   *

Devere did not return until morning, and although he put a brave face on it, she knew that her situation was dire. He accompanied a small detachment of redcoats sent to transfer her to more suitable accommodations. The man known as Butcher Caide was entirely indifferent to their departure, but she could feel Dyson’s narrowed eyes on her back as she was marched out of the church, and she could hear him saying something crude about clarifying the “real” color of her hair.

They took her to the Sugar House, which had been fitted up as a Rebel prison, and here Devere counted out more guineas than Jenny had ever seen all in one
place so that she might have a private cell, and that Fairchild might remain with her. Severin also promised to send Margaret to her.

“General Howe,” he explained, “wants to send you north to Burgoyne.”

“Why the devil would he do that?” asked Fairchild.

“Because he thinks she is his mistress.”

“Why does he imagine that?” Jenny asked.

“Because
I
persuaded him of it. It is a necessary fiction. As long as Howe believes it, he dare not hang you. But I very much fear that Burgoyne
will
. We must make our escape en route. It will not be easy. They are sending us north with reinforcements for Jack Brag’s Albany campaign. We will bide our time and seize the best opportunity that presents itself.”

*   *   *

Devere saw her settled in the Sugar House. He wished he could stay longer, comfort her for the loss of her aunt, but time was short now.

Fairchild agreed to put off calling out John André to remain with Jenny. Severin knew he would have to take some more permanent measure to prevent that duel from ever happening—he did not like his friend’s odds in such a contest—but he had a few calls to pay first.

Severin saw the wife of his man of business first, because money would be needed. Then he went to call upon James Rivington.

Two years earlier Isaac Sears and the Liberty Boys had stolen all of his type and run Rivington out of town. Severin had never ascertained whether the attack had been genuine—and Rivington a true Tory at the time—or a blind engineered by Washington to give credence to
his printer’s cover as a loyalist, but Rivington had come back and reopened his coffee shop as soon as Howe had entered the city, and was even now advertising that his new press would be available to print all manner of handbills, advertisements, and of course newspapers soon. He had not advertised that he was printing Rebel propaganda on a secret press in his basement.

The hour was early and the coffeehouse not yet open for business, but the door was unlocked and Severin found the man himself behind the counter grinding beans.

“I have come to inquire about the printing of a pamphlet,” said Severin.

“My new press has not yet arrived from England,” said the dapper Rivington pleasantly. “I will begin taking orders as soon as it is delivered.”

“It is not your new press I am interested in,” said Severin. “It’s the one you used to print Jennifer Leighton’s
Braggart Soldier
.”

Rivington’s hand on the grinder stopped moving. He looked at Severin’s scarlet regimentals and lied smoothly. “I’m afraid you must have me confused with another printer.”

“I do not, sir. You are a double agent. You have been selling information to both sides for so long that few know, or particularly care, where your true allegiances lie. But I have been the purchaser, at second hand, of your wares in the past, and I will see you swing alongside Miss Jennifer Leighton if you do not do precisely as I ask.”

Rivington considered and took off his apron. “What,
precisely
, do you want?”

“Information and aid. The girl has been arrested. She will be sent north to Burgoyne, who will hang her.
Your people got her into this mess. I want you to help me get her out.”

“She knew the risks,” said Rivington coldly. “And she was recompensed for them.”

“Not nearly so generously as you were, though,” said Devere. “What did Miss Leighton receive for her play? A penny on every pound you made? I wonder how much Washington
believes
she has been paid, and how much she really had of you. It can be a very profitable thing to have friends on both sides of a war, but a very dangerous one to have none at all.”

“Your point is taken,” said Rivington. “I will do what I can.”

“I am glad we understand each other. You will find out everything about this expedition that there is to know. The number of men, the size and number of guns we will be carrying, the names of the officers and their financial circumstances, the route to be taken. And after you have reported to me, you will relay the same information to General Washington.”

It took Rivington three days to gather the intelligence that Severin wanted, much of it gleaned from talk overheard in his coffeehouse.

“Howe,” said the printer, “wants to be seen to be supporting General Burgoyne without actually diminishing his own resources for his drive into Philadelphia. He has scavenged five guns from his brother’s ships, and if the navy did not want them you can be sure that they are not fit to fire. Neither does he want to part with a company of his soldiers—not even a company of Hessians—so he has thrown together a half-strength one of stragglers: men whose units were shattered at Bunker Hill and are too depleted to be
re-formed. By sending these to Burgoyne, he saves the expense of their passage home. And he has taken the opportunity to empty his prisons as well. You will likely have thirty or forty men, a dozen of whom were set to be hanged for pillaging the inhabitants of New York. Thieves, murderers, and rapists.”

“And the officers?”

“There is an engineer going north with the guns, but he drinks and is not fit to command a digging party. John André has handpicked a lieutenant who knows the terrain to lead your expedition. David Jones. A loyalist from Fort Edward. He was hounded from his home by Rebels and has lost all his property so will have no sympathy whatsoever for the girl. Jones walked all the way to Montreal to join up with a loyalist regiment. He desires a place on Burgoyne’s staff, but he has a fiancée waiting for him in Fort Edward and, unfortunately,
she
has a brother who is an officer with the Continentals. So Jones has thus far found his path to advancement blocked. The girl, I’m told, is lively and from an honest family, and adjudged a great beauty in those parts on account of her uncommonly fine red hair.”

Like Jenny’s copper locks. They would be shorn before they hanged her so the hair did not foul the rope. The thought nearly made Severin ill, and also angry.

“I have drawn a map of what I surmise will be the route,” continued Rivington. “The guns will slow you down and Jones will have to keep tight discipline with so many likely deserters in his company. His troubles will only increase once you leave the settled areas. The scrapings of Howe’s army are all too likely to decamp into the wilderness. That will be your best opportunity.”

“Copy it out and send it to Washington, and tell
him that we will be ready to take advantage of any aid he can furnish.”

“And if no aid is forthcoming?”

“I suggest you be exceptionally persuasive,” said Devere. “If Miss Leighton hangs, sir, I promise you one thing: that you will follow her to the gibbet shortly thereafter.”

*   *   *

Jenny had never spent a whole week locked in one room. It took that long for the artillery and a company of foot to be organized. During the day Courtney remained with her in the Sugar House. At night Severin came and slept beside her on the bed in her cell. At all times there were six dragoons posted outside her door, courtesy of John André.

“Do you trust Rivington to deliver your message?” she asked.

“No. Not entirely. That is why I sent one to my uncle as well.”

She did not ask how likely he thought it that Washington would exert himself, and expend his scant powder, to save her.

At the end of the week Lieutenant Jones called on them. He was much as Rivington had described: tall, dark haired, and humorless, a stolid frontiersman with shockingly weathered skin for his age. He was reluctant to meet Jenny’s eyes, and there was a wary prickliness about him, the kind that picked-on children acquire, that assumes every whispered word to be a slight. It was difficult to imagine him engaged to some frontier beauty with titian hair, but Jenny supposed that the qualities valued in the forests of New York were different from those prized in the quiet lanes of New Brunswick.

Jones wore the uniform of a loyalist regiment
unfamiliar to Jenny, ill-fitting and travel-stained cream and yellow wool. She knew from Devere that Jones had been loosely attached to Burgoyne’s staff and had carried the general’s dispatches south, and had been ordered to return with men and guns.

An outright refusal from Howe might not have reflected poorly on Jones. Returning with a half dozen rotting naval cannon—which would probably kill their crews when fired—and a small band of criminals and demoralized men who had lost most of their friends at Bunker Hill, most certainly would. In short, Lieutenant Jones was not a happy man, and Jenny’s presence made him only more unhappy.

On the morning of their departure she was led out to the carts under guard and Jones ordered her shackled to one of the cannon.

Devere protested.

“I am not under your authority, Colonel,” said Jones, without even a hint of sympathy. He pocketed the key to Jenny’s irons. “I have been given a regrettable task and, frankly, dealt a very bad hand.” He looked at the men, who appeared orderly enough for the moment, but sullen, and certainly no credit to the British army. “But I know my duty, sir. And my orders are plain. The girl will be chained to the guns at all times. And if she runs, she’ll be shot.”

Thirty-five men, three carts, a dozen horses, Jenny, and Devere started north on a bright June morning. Devere stayed close, walking alongside her cart, talking to her of the passing country, of trivial, pleasant things—speaking to her in lower tones whenever he was certain they would not be overheard.

At the Sugar House he had brought her new clothes
for the journey, two heavy linen petticoats and a jacket in dark brown cotton. “The colors will blend into the forest when we make our escape. There is scrip sewn into your jacket, coins spaced inside the hem of your skirt. I will carry weapons enough for the pair of us, once we have broken free. Keep a little food in your pockets at all times—in case we have to take our chances and leave our packs behind.”

He was indeed carrying weapons enough for the two of them, but they were different from what he had armed himself with aboard the
Boyne
or what he had carried the night the dragoons had stormed the old Dutch church. He wore the regimental coat she despised, but this was over buckskin leggings and a simple linen shirt. He carried a single pistol, a long rifle, and two knives, including the quilled blade she had tucked in his pocket in the basement at John Street. But no sword: in its place hung a steel-and-hickory tomahawk.