The Tory Widow (44 page)

Floyd raised his bottle. “Well, here's to bagging this one bugger.”

“It is a crooked, fretful world we live in, Mr. Floyd . . .” The provost uncorked his bottle and took a gulp. “And we who are truly loyal to our good King are called to put a halt to these perfidious practices, and make an example of these quisling men.”

JACK forced a smile, and hooked the grapple onto the windowsill. “I'll see you soon . . .”

Anne fell back against the wall, sad and sleepy, clutching the sheet she'd dragged off the bed for protection against the early-morning chill. “When?”

“I have business to sort out with Mulligan—and I'll pass on the information you gleaned last night. If things bog me down, I'll send Titus with word—but both he and I have to be careful coming around in the light of day. The Crown and Quill is a haven for dragoons.” He played the rope out the window, and double-checked the integrity of the grapple's grip on the sill. “There . . . don't forget to drop the hook down after I'm gone.”

Anne nodded. “I'll stash it behind the cistern—for when you return.”

Jack hated to leave. Waking beneath the warm weight of Anne's arm and leg—her head nestled to his shoulder, her scent in his nose—all brought him peace and well-being beyond measure. When he woke wrapped within his true love's sleepy embrace after a long night of lovemaking, he could not help but revel in knowing Edward Blankenship lay alone in his bed—right beneath the floorboards—with nothing more to comfort him but his poor, dry palm.

But the rooster's clarion call sounded the alarm, the sparkling stars began to dim as the square patch of black sky visible through the open window brightened to deep blue, and Jack forced himself to summon the will to leave his Anne once again. Afraid to take her into his arms for fear of not being able to let her go, he leaned in for one last kiss, bracing his hand to the wall.

“I love you so . . .” she whispered, just before her tender lips met his.

“And I you.”

Jack went over the sill. Arm under arm, bootsoles walking the wall, he carefully descended, jumping the last eight feet to the ground. As soon as his feet met the earth, cold sharp steel met the hollow of his throat.

“Up wi' yer mitts, blackguard, afore I carve ye a new smile,” Sally snarled.

Jack raised his arms. “Put by your knife, Sal—it's your ol' friend Jack Hampton.”

“
Sally!
” Anne whispered, leaning out the window, waving her arm. “
All 's well!
”

Sally eyed her smiling mistress, naked but for the bed linen clutched to her breast. “Yer most surely th' devil's get, Jack Hampton,” she hissed, withdrawing her blade, “t' have charmed th' anger from tha' woman.”

Jack spun around with a wide grin and a wag of his brows. “More than charm put the smile on your mistress's face.”

“I swear t' Christ, lad.” Sally gave him her fiercest redheaded, cutty-eye glare, pointing the tip of her carving knife toward his nether region. “If I find yiv caused our Annie a moment's grief, I'll slice off yer tallywags and shove 'em one by one down yer gullet.”

“And if I were to commit such a crime, I would expect nothing less, Sal.”

Taking off in a run, Jack bounded onto the table, grabbed a tree limb and swung onto the top of the wall. He turned and blew a kiss up to Anne, and in one leap disappeared.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THOMAS PAINE,
Common Sense

 

 

 

 

 

S
ALLY urged the last customers out the front door, and spied the two-horse cariole turning onto the narrow lane. She called to Anne, “The coach is here!” then ran halfway up the stairs and shouted, “Captain Blankenship! Yer transport has arrived!”

A few moments later, the three dragoons came trouncing down, dressed in their brilliant regimentals—helmets polished, death's-heads glaring, swords agleam.

“Och! Verra braw, yiz are, gentlemen.” Sally fanned her face with fingers. “Nothing like a cavalryman in full feather t' set a lass's heart aflutter.”

Wemyss sucked in his gut, Stuart puffed out his scrawny chest, and Blankenship searched the room for Anne. “Where's your mistress, Sally?”

Sally cupped hands to mouth, shouting, “Annie! The captain's askin' after ye!”

Anne came scurrying out of the kitchenhouse, red-faced, straightening her ink-stained mobcap with one hand, digging in the pocket of her brown work skirt with the other. Arm outstretched, she offered the front door key to Edward Blankenship. “As Sally and I will no doubt be fast asleep on your return . . .”

“Don't forget to leave the door unbolted, Miss Sally,” Wemyss reminded. “Lest we be forced to scale the walls . . .”

“Scale the walls!” Stuart laughed. “I'll be happy to see you scale your bed unaided.”

The officers were on their way to a gala event being hosted by General Howe at the headquarters established at Mount Pleasant—the expansive Beekman Estate on the East River—a full hour's carriage ride up the Post Road.

Edward slipped the key inside his pocket and took Anne by the hands. “I wish you would change your mind and come along. Run up and put on that pretty blue dress—I'll have the coachman wait . . .”

Anne pulled her hands free, and took a step back. “Edward, you know I'm committed to running the press tonight. This maiden job is crucial to re-establishing my printing business, and I must watch and ward over these new journeymen I've managed to hire.”

The three dragoons turned and eyed the two men clad in leather aprons at work assembling a small engraving press at the back of the shop.

“The wee nyaff with the blue specs is an oddling, Mrs. Merrick.” Stuart tapped his temple with his forefinger. “Two bricks shy of a load . . . if you ken my meaning . . .”

“On the contrary, Mr. Stuart,” Anne declared. “The man is of very good substance—why, he's a Quaker.”

The little man pushed his spectacles to the top of his head, and said, very loud, “Actually, mistress, I am a Deist . . . but I can assure you, I am in possession of all my ‘bricks.' ”

“Please mind your tongue, Lieutenant,” Anne whispered. “Reliable journeymen are few and far between . . .”

“Your other man—the squinty-eyed fellow—I'd say he bears watching,” Wemyss warned. “The rogue has a thievish look about him.”

“Is that the coachman calling?” Sally exhibited her closing-time prowess. Linking arms with the two lieutenants, she hustled them out the door before Tully could cull up any umbrage to the lieutenant's astute observation.

Anne led the captain by the hand. “Enjoy the gala, Edward . . .”

“An impossible task, without you by my side.” Planting a lingering kiss to Anne's palm, Blankenship climbed into the cariole.

The women stood out on the lane, smiling, waving and calling, “
Farewell!
” as the hired carriage rolled away. The very second it disappeared around the corner onto Dock Street, they scurried back into the shop. Sally slammed the door shut and shot the three brass bolts home. Anne closed the drapery and shouted, “All clear.”

Jack came out of the kitchenhouse, doling out a belly rub to a very complacent Bandit, who was cradled legs-up in his arms. Titus followed after, munching on a triangle of shortbread. Anne marched to the back of the shop wiping her just-kissed palm to her skirt.

“Let's get to work . . . we've not a moment to spare.”

Tully slipped off the leather apron he wore and handed it to Titus. “How much time d' ye think we have, missus?”

“They won't be back for at least six hours—perhaps seven, if the punch flows free and their luck holds at the faro table.”

Jack set Bandit on his feet. “Sally, do you have a little something these boys can call supper?”

“Och! I've lashins and lavins . . . Take a seat and I'll bring yiz all a bite to eat.”

“Aye that, Sal.” Tully grinned. “High treason is best committed on a full belly.”

The four men took seats around a pair of tables shoved together, and Anne helped Sally dish up a quick supper of fish chowder served with slabs of dense brownbread, butter and jam. While the men ate, Anne leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, eyeing with a measure of wonder the strange apparatus assembled at the back of her shop. She had not even known of its existence until Titus unearthed it from the deepest depths of the closet beneath the stair—and there it sat, the machine they would use to commit the felonious act that, if caught, would earn them all a dance beneath the gibbet.

“Mr. Mulligan is very lucky, Jack, that you're not one to bear a grudge . . .” Anne said. “I doubt he could have found anyone else to operate that contraption.”

The engraving press was quite different from the more common letterpress she was accustomed to. The device was equipped with a moveable bed, which carried plate and paper between a pair of heavy mahogany rollers, and was worked by turning a large wheel, much like the helm on a three-masted brigantine.

Parker's Press, where Jack had apprenticed and earned his journeyman status, had been outfitted with such a press that was used mostly for printing illustrations and maps. Jack reassured them all, and the engraver concurred, the difficulty in engraved printing lay in producing the copper plate. “And we are rich in this regard”—Jack and Titus tapped tankards of cider in toast—“for our ever-thinking Quaker has created not one, but two master works for our use.”

Twilight loomed, and the counterfeiting crew could not afford to dillydally over their meal. Titus hung a series of oil lanterns to illuminate the press and compositor's table. Sally arranged ladderback chairs in a semicircle around the fireplace to serve as makeshift racks. Tully brought in a supply of wood and kindled a fire on the hearth to speed the drying process. The Quaker cut two hundred foolscap-sized sheets in half, and put the paper to soak in a large pan filled with clear water from the cistern.

Anne stood at the compositor's table preparing an inkball. She stuffed fluffy wool into the bulbous leather cover, and hammered home the tacks securing it to the wooden handle—all the while covertly watching Jack as he made the final adjustments to the press.

Every night since that first night when he'd climbed into her garret window, Jack had come flying across rooftops to share her bed, and the knowance they had of one another was built upon whispers and caresses in the dark. It was a different sort of pleasure—seeing Jack in the bright lantern light, happy amid the tools of his trade.

Like the day he'd first kissed her beneath the portico of St. Paul's, Jack was dressed in plain journeyman's garb—leather breeches, his linsey shirt open at the collar and protected by a leather apron, sleeves rolled to elbows. She admired the tight muscles in his forearms, bunching and twisting as he worked the wrench, his expressive brows furled in concentration, calibrating the space between the rollers to the perfect degree. Anne had touched every square inch of his hard body, but she only just now noticed the slight scar below his left eye, and she longed to swipe back the loose strand of hair escaped from the hasty queue he'd tied round with a length of twine snatched from the ream of paper. Handsome features tinged by the blue-black of a two-day beard lent him a rakish countenance Anne could only equate with the words
daring
and
courage,
and the wanton recollection of that rough, unshaven cheek scraping along the tender skin of her inner thigh sent a warm thrill spiraling up her spine.

Anne set the inkball aside, and pleated a sheet of paper into a fan to cool her sudden blush. Jack Hampton required no silver trim or fancy plumage to enhance his tall, strong form, and the very sight of him kindled a fire in her heart that burned beyond the bounds of all reason.

Jack put the wrench down and gave the big wheel a turn, his soft brown eyes intent on the motion of the rollers. Satisfied with the result, he came around and joined her at the composing table. Pressing a hand to the small of her back, he smiled and planted a soft peck on her cheek.

“So, my little devil, are you ready for your next lesson?”

Anne sighed. “Oh, yes.”

Jack took up the spouted tin vessel Tully had diverted from a shipment destined for Rivington's Press, and drizzled a syrupy stream onto the inkblock, coating the bottom surface with a thin layer. “First we ink the plate.”

The engraved copper plate was lying on a thick pad of newsprint, centered on the composing table. He situated the inkblock to his left, agitating the viscous substance with the spatulalike steel. To the right of the plate, he stacked two dozen quarter-yard swaths of tarlatan gauze he had folded into hand-sized pads. Next to the tarlatan he placed a small bowl of powdered chalk.

“You must be thorough in beating the ink into the etched lines.” Jack coated the leather ball with sticky ink and daubed it to the engraved copper plate. “Just as in working a letterpress, proper inking is crucial to achieving a quality impression.” Using the broad blade on the steel, he scraped the surplus ink off the plate, and took up a pad of the coarse, loosely woven gauze. “Apply the tarlatan with a light hand.” He demonstrated, carefully wiping the face of the plate with small circular motions—cleaning the plate, but leaving the incised lines filled with ink.

“And then the final step . . .” Jack dipped the heel of his left hand into the bowl of chalk, clapping the excess away. “Mind—only a touch of chalk is required.” He swiped his powdered palm across the face of the plate twice to remove any filmy ink residue remaining. “The handwipe ensures a bright result.”