The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (32 page)

"Indeed.
 
But the redcoats aren't stupid.
 
If they discover what he's about, they won't
waste any time widowing Emma and closing down the tavern."

And Emma had considered herself
lucky that morning.
 
Betsy wondered how
much her cousin knew of Abel's activities with the spy ring.
 
But that wasn't the most pressing of her
concerns.
 
"Tom, if Abel's
involved, the spies know where to find us."

He sighed.
 
"I shan't sleep easier for that."

"But Abel may know where to
find Clark."

He firmed his grip on her hand and
captured her gaze in his.
 
"Walk
carefully around him.
 
We don't know
what he'll tell Clark about Betsy and Tom
Sheridan
, lodged together
beneath his roof."

***

She sent him back to work and
carried his dishes from the garden, trailing despondency.
 
Not even the aroma of stew perked her
spirits.
 
Clark, wherever he was hiding,
was her husband, and Tom was their friend.
 
And so she and Tom hadn't acted on the growing attraction they felt for
each other.
 
But what reward would
virtue deliver if Abel told Clark his wife was sharing a bed with his friend?
 
She doubted things could get much worse.

Sally waylaid her from the side
yard, her hands soapy from a washtub.
 
In exchange for dirty dishes, Betsy carried a tray of clean tankards
inside.
 
As she entered the dining room,
Emma flagged her down from the common room.
 
"In here with those tankards."

Betsy spotted a brunette seated at
the dining room table, a coffee cup before her.
 
She smiled.
 
"Good
afternoon."

Her rosy lips perfect and full, her
dark eyes sultry, the woman returned the smile.
 
"Good afternoon."
 
Janet, Dolly, Maria, or Margaret?
 
Whoever she was, she was quite fetching.
 
She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and her silk bedgown
advertised luscious curves.

In a common room swept and tidied
by Henry and Philip, Betsy helped Hattie and Emma stack tankards in preparation
for the night.
 
Through a thin haze of
pipe and cheroot smoke, Emma's early-shift tavern maid ambled between three
tables of soldiers playing cards and dice and filled their tankards.

Betsy followed Emma and Hattie back
to the dining room, where two women had joined the brunette at the table.
 
Emma ushered her forward.
 
"Ladies, this is my cousin Betsy from
Augusta.
 
Betsy and her husband, Tom,
are living with us until he's established in business."
 
She introduced a thin blonde with a crooked
nose as Janet, a chunky brunette with bouncy curls as Dolly, and the sultry,
gorgeous brunette as Margaret.
 
Janet
and Dolly, also adorned in bedgowns, were about Margaret's age.

"How do you do."
 
Betsy bobbed a stiff curtsy and wondered
what flavor of small talk one pursued with high-class harlots.

"Pleased to meet you,
Betsy," murmured each of the women, just as skeptical.

Sally brought in a tray of damp,
clean tankards, and Hattie whisked it away to the common room.
 
Emma beamed at the three ladies, not
indifferent to the awkwardness.
 
"Betsy's helping me with the cleaning.
 
Have you seen the rooms upstairs yet?"

The apathy on Janet's face
transformed into pleasant surprise.
 
"You did that, Betsy?
 
Why,
you did a wonderful job.
 
Thank
you."
 
Despite her crooked nose,
Janet was pretty when she smiled.

Margaret smiled, too.
 
"Emma's needed reliable help."

"That girl Lotty just couldn't
keep herself out of the bottle."
 
Dolly's curls bounced.
 
"Welcome, Betsy."

When Emma mentioned that Betsy and
Tom were expecting, the ladies murmured congratulations, and Betsy followed
their thinking.
 
What a wretched time to
be bringing a child into the world.
 
She
said to Dolly, "Emma tells me you've a son.
 
Where is he?"

"With Mr. Fitzgerald two streets
over, learning his letters and arithmetic.
 
Emma has such a big heart."
 
Dolly's dark eyes sparkled.
 
"She's arranged for Maria's daughter to receive schooling, and
she's found someone to look after my grandmama."

For a fleeting second, Betsy
fancied changing professions because Emma had made the benefits so
attractive.
 
Then Hattie returned to the
dining room, her expression stoic.
 
"Captain Robert Harding's arrived."

Emma drew a watch from her
pocket.
 
"One-fifteen."
 
She snapped the watch shut.

Surliness puckered Dolly's
lips.
 
"He's early again."

"Well, then, keep him waiting
again.
 
I must check on the stew,
ladies."
 
Emma tucked the watch
back in her pocket and reached for the back door.
 
"But don't keep the captain waiting
too
long,
Dolly."

Margaret and Janet snickered.
 
Hattie poured two cups of coffee and set
them before Janet and Dolly.
 
"Have
yo'self a cup of coffee before you rush off, Miz Dolly."

"Fetch her some ham, too,
Hattie.
 
She shall need the sustenance
after Bouncing Bob takes command."
 
Janet grinned, and Betsy spotted the gap where her husband had knocked
out her back teeth.
 
Pity shot through
her before she could get a grip on it and dismantle it.
 
The women didn't want her pity, and she sure
didn't want their life, regardless of Emma's generosity.

Hattie set to work unwrapping and
slicing a ham on the sideboard, and Margaret addressed Betsy.
 
"You're from Augusta?
 
How far is Alton from Augusta?"

Betsy regarded Margaret with
surprise.
 
"Alton's about thirteen
miles south, but I'm amazed you've heard of it.
 
It's such a small town."

Janet waved away Betsy's
words.
 
"Oh, we've heard of Alton,
to be sure.
 
Alton, Alton, Alton for the
past two days."

Dolly smirked.
 
"Indeed, you'd think it was Jesus
Christ himself who came from Alton."

That sultry look captured
Margaret's face.
 
"You're all
jealous because he took his time with me."

Janet laughed.
 
"Bouncing Bob takes his time with
Dolly, but no one's jealous of her for it."

Dolly's lips pinched again.
 
"He'd take his time with any woman.
 
That man's forge is so cold that even the
bellows seldom revives it."
 
For
emphasis, she thrust her cupped hand several times toward her open, rounded
lips, a familiar gesture that earned a flush from Betsy and merry peals of
laughter from the other two ladies.
 
When they'd subsided, Dolly winked at Betsy.
 
"Take our advice.
 
Give your Tom a little of it every now and then.
 
It's one way to keep him from straying.
 
All men are the same, even husbands."

Betsy flushed again.
 
As for what Tom wanted, she'd best not
consider it.

"Not
all
men are the
same."

"That fellow from Alton
again?
 
Pshaw, Margaret, let it
go."

"He called me his
priestess."

Dolly wiggled her eyebrows.
 
"One fellow last week called me Queen
Charlotte."

"And a few have called me
Venus."
 
Janet frowned.
 
"But a man never called me a
priestess
before.
 
That's right peculiar."

"You weren't pretending to be
a virgin led to a sacrifice, were you?"
 
Dolly sipped coffee.

"Not with him, no."

"Maybe Margaret's fellow
wasn't a man.
 
With that red hair of
his, he might have been Mars in disguise."
 
Dolly slapped her thigh and laughed.

"You saw him?"
 
Janet picked at ham Hattie set before her.

"Mmmm.
 
Tight bum on that handsome young
lieutenant.
 
I sure wouldn't have minded
spending four hours with him."
 
Dolly shoveled ham into her mouth.

The pieces condensed in Betsy's
reasoning, and she felt her skin crawl.
 
Alton.
 
Red hair.
 
Lieutenant.
 
Oh, no, surely it wasn't so.
 
But
hadn't Emma said something the day before about Margaret entertaining an
officer from the Seventeenth Light?

Janet shook a piece of ham at
Margaret.
 
"You'd best take hold of
yourself.
 
The delectable ones don't
often come back."

Mystical conviction curved the
corners of Margaret's mouth.
 
"He'll be back.
 
He said
so."

Emma entered through the back door,
a bottle of wine in one hand, a lit lantern in the other.
 
"Dolly, is this the red Captain Harding
so admires?"

Dolly squinted at the bottle.
 
"Yes, it is."

"What luck.
 
More bottles arrived with this morning's
delivery."
 
She motioned Betsy over
and handed her the lantern.
 
"Dear,
please run down to the cellar, fetch another bottle of this vintage, and set
the two bottles up in room number four with a couple of glasses."
 
She grinned at Dolly.
 
"While we ensure the good captain is
made merry."

Betsy grasped the lantern and
headed for the cellar, a scream simmering just below her throat, jumpy for
release.
 
The second or third step down,
she tripped and just managed to catch herself from falling.
 
The lantern banging the wall, she clung to
the railing, steadied her breathing, and announced to her audience of wine
bottles, "I'm a fool, an utter and complete fool."

The worst she might have expected
in Augusta for sticking to her principles was sharing a smelly jail cell with
Abby Fuller.
 
Now, in Camden, she had to
live under the roof of odious Abel Branwell, who might, at any moment, dispute
her marital fidelity with the husband she loved.
 
And if that weren't enough misery, she'd need to stay on guard
day after day, her nerves wracked all to hell.
 
For if Margaret's confidence were any indicator, Lieutenant Fairfax
would return.
 
He'd been a satisfied
customer.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"WHAT A MUCKING
mess."
 
Tom glanced behind, as much
to gauge the angle of the setting sun as to make sure no one sharing the dusty
road could hear.
 
"Did you tell
Margaret you knew Fairfax?"

"No."
 
Betsy mopped her forehead with her kerchief
and scurried to keep up with his stride eastbound on a road rippling with heat.

He noticed and slowed.
 
"I keep forgetting my legs are
longer."

"We cannot stay hidden to
avoid him."

Tom shifted his musket from one
hand to the other and flexed the muscles in his empty hand.
 
"What do you propose?"

"Approach Margaret with a
story about why we don't want him knowing we're here.
 
Ask her to alert us when he returns."

"What story are you
considering?"

"I don't know.
 
I've contemplated it all afternoon.
 
Whatever we say, she'll relate it to the
others and Emma, so we must use their gossip to our advantage."

A smile crinkled the corners of his
eyes after he considered a few seconds.
 
"Let's build on the story we told the Branwells about our
creditors.
 
Fairfax is a creditor.
 
I lost money to him at piquet back in June,
when we visited your family in Alton.
 
We agreed I'd make him a pair of boots to cancel the debt."

"Keep talking.
 
The story sounds plausible."

"When he came to Augusta to
collect, the house and shop had burned the night before."