The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (52 page)

T
OGETHER, THEY
watched as the sun sank behind the mountains on the west side of the Hudson, telling them it was time to set out. “Keep quiet now, ladies.” Arnold helped them each step into the
small rowboat. Before he pushed off, he wrapped the oars in sheepskin to muffle the sound of the splashing water. As he rowed determinedly down the river, an uneasy silence descended over them and the evening sky darkened.

Clara was grateful for the deepening veil of nighttime and the cover it allowed her as she sat across from the rowing Arnold in this immodest dress. She’d never been so exposed, and she hadn’t liked the way he had looked at her, in much the same way he looked at Peggy, when he’d first seen her in the peach dress.

“Raiding parties all over these parts lately.” Arnold cast a nervous glance toward the shoreline. “It’s a good thing there’s less moonlight tonight.” It was now pitch dark and nearly impossible to see, but the shores groaned with late summer noises—bats, owls, bullfrogs. Clara’s eyes darted back and forth between the eastern and western shores, scouring the woods for any sign of a patrol party. Had Caleb told his senior officers to look out for André wandering across their lines? Clara wondered.

Peggy fidgeted beside her, adjusting the neckline of her rose-colored gown. She smelled overripe with perfume. As the river widened the wind picked up, sending a ripple of waves across the surface, and a silver spray of water tickled Clara’s skin. She shivered. The evening air had a chill, the hint of the coming autumn.

“Careful with those oars, Benedict, you’ve just splashed me!” Peggy smoothed the skirt of her dress for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Keep your voice down, Peg.”

Clara knew her lady well enough to tell that she was not nervous about being intercepted by suspicious British search parties, or worse, suspicious colonial militiamen; Peggy was nervous about looking good for her former lover.

Clara saw through the milky moonlight that Arnold perspired
under the effort of rowing. Every few minutes, he’d throw a nervous glance over his shoulder in the direction of New York City, no doubt studying the dark horizon for patrols rowing the waters around No Man’s Land. It took hours, but though his breathing grew labored, Arnold never slowed his pace. Clara watched moonlit forests and hills pass as they kept gliding determinedly toward Haverstraw.

“No need to be nervous, ladies,” Arnold said. Clara suspected it was as much for his own comfort as it was for theirs. “It’s a late summer evening, and I am a respected local commander with my wife and sister-in-law on a joy cruise to visit a friend, Joshua Smith. That is what we shall tell anyone who attempts to stop us.”

The air had turned chillier. The night grew louder with the sound of crickets, the shrill call of an owl, the soft gurgle of the oars pulling them through the calm water down the river. “What’s that noise?” Peggy jumped beside Clara, rocking the small boat as she ducked down in a rush of silk and hoopskirt.

“It’s just a bat,” Clara answered, attempting to quell her mistress’s skittishness. She saw the creatures flying overhead erratically, their black outlines visible against the moonlit sky.

“It sounded like a ghost,” Peggy said, peering out over the water.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Clara answered.

“Keep it down, girls,” Arnold warned them. Since when did he refer to Clara as one of the “girls”?

They knew they were finally approaching Haverstraw when they spotted a flotilla of lights ahead, bobbing above the surface of the water. “Look!” Peggy gasped. The outline of a boat, blazing in candlelight, gave the appearance of a haunted mansion, its anchor dropped by its phantom crew.

“The
Vulture
,” Arnold said, eyeing the lights that pierced the dark night.

“André is here,” Peggy said. Her bracelet jingled as her hands frantically adjusted her hairdo.

“He finally showed up,” Arnold answered, a satisfied tenor in his voice. The lone candle on the bank signified the spot where their host, Joshua Smith, awaited them on the shore before his home. Arnold redirected the oars and guided their boat toward the western bank with renewed vigor.

“Ahoy! Visitors from up river?” A voice rang out from the shore, where a single lantern cast a foggy shroud of light.

“It is us!” Arnold growled back, maneuvering the boat to the west bank.

“You’ve reached your destination sir,” Smith answered, evidently enjoying the practice of speaking in vague formalities, as if in code. He seemed to be taking this evening visit very seriously, having been told that he was to host General Arnold and a very high-ranking colonial spy.

“Smith, there you are.” Arnold directed the boat ashore on the softly sloping bank. “What is the hour?” he asked, shaking his host’s outstretched hand.

“It is approximately one hour until midnight,” Smith bowed to Arnold, his nasally voice sounding very formal.

“Good to see you, Smith.” Arnold slapped his host on the back, and Clara saw how the man’s thin frame quaked under the rough handling.

“And you, sir,” Smith answered.

“Thank you for hosting this meeting a second time, Smith. It’s highly important to the colonial cause. The man is a top spy who has infiltrated the British ranks.”

“It is my honor to host a meeting with two men of such import,” Smith answered.

Arnold stepped back to help his wife out of the small rowboat,
and then Clara, who accepted his outstretched hand with some surprise, slowly learning that the practice of dressing in fine clothing like this afforded her the solicitous hand of a man like Benedict Arnold.

“Smith, you are already acquainted with my wife.” Arnold escorted Peggy forward.

“But of course. A lady of her beauty is impossible to forget. Charmed, Mrs. Arnold.” Smith bowed low.

“And this is my wife’s sister.”

“Does she have a name, or shall I simply call her ‘Sister’?”

Arnold faltered—they had not discussed what Clara’s alias would be.

“I’m Clara.” She stepped forward, offering her hand with an air of confidence that she hoped resembled Peggy’s. “Clara Shippen.”

“Clara Shippen, what a pleasant surprise.” Smith held the lantern aloft as he kissed her hand. Clara smiled widely, curtsying as she’d seen her mistress do so many times. “I was not aware that Mrs. Arnold had a sister who was visiting, but I am delighted by the turn of events.” Smith’s smile was uninhibited as he stared at his two female visitors. “I can’t decide which of the two is more beautiful.”

Clara noted the quiver in Peggy’s lip at this remark, but she kept her sweet smile fixed firmly on her face.

Smith continued, holding his lantern aloft so that its glow fell on the two women. “The family resemblance is really quite remarkable. What is clear to me is that you two ladies must have had quite the handsome set of parents.” He seemed to take a particular interest in Clara, for he admired her unashamedly—his gaze roving over her hair, her face, her figure that was so clearly on display in this attire. This was what it was like, Clara realized, to have men constantly eyeing you. She didn’t know that she liked it.

“Is Andrrr . . . Anderson . . . here yet?” Arnold asked, his voice with an edge to it.

“He is. Just arrived.” Smith leaned close and whispered to Arnold. “He wanted to watch you disembark from a spot hidden from view. He seemed to have some last-minute suspicions as to who exactly he was meeting.” Smith raised his voice now, apparently so that André could hear. “But now, he sees that General Arnold stands before me, along with his beautiful wife and sister-in-law, and he can have no doubts about the true attendees of the meeting.”

All four of them stood in silence, awaiting André’s response to this announcement. Peggy shifted restlessly beside Clara.

“You see that it is I, Benedict Arnold,” Arnold roared into the dark evening. “Show yourself.”

A shadowed figure slid out from behind a nearby sapling, the man’s outline just barely visible in the velvety blackness. “Good evening.” André, no more than a dark shape, spoke in a cool, calm drawl. Peggy inhaled a quick breath. Clara, too, recognized the voice and the clipped British accent, but none of them could see André beyond his shadow of an outline.

“Come closer,” Arnold insisted. “Into the light, that I may see you.”

“Well, well, well.” The figure ambled toward them, his old swagger still evident in his gait. He walked into the feeble halo of light cast by Smith’s lantern. On his face he wore a dashing, self-assured smile, like the one he’d worn to all of those Philadelphia balls years ago. Instead of his regimental uniform, he was bundled under a navy blue cloak over black breeches, a black tricornered hat on his head. He looked every inch the dashing colonial spy.

“If it isn’t Peggy Shippen.” André, his features now illuminated by the candlelight, inched up to his former paramour. Clara could feel her mistress trembling beside her as André lifted her hand to his lips and placed upon it a lingering kiss. “Hello, Peggy Shippen.”

“It’s Peggy Arnold now, Major André.” Even though she pulled
her hand back and straightened up as she spoke, Peggy’s tone was as feeble as the candlelight in the evening breeze. “You forget that I’m married to General Benedict Arnold.” Peggy cast her gaze sideways to her husband. “Soon to be . . .
Lord
Benedict Arnold.”

Smith looked on, confused.

“That is, if you deliver on your promises, my good man,” Arnold reached forward, taking André’s hand from his wife’s and shaking it roughly.

“I believe it is you who shall have to deliver . . . a certain someone,” André nodded, returning the handshake.

“And we will.” Arnold answered, defiant. “The name’s General Arnold, happy to meet you, Major.”

In every way, the men shaking hands before Clara were foils of each other. André was tall, slender, lithe in his movements, while Arnold stood before him stocky, rough-hewn, and less than graceful. The British officer’s features were fine and delicate—almost as pretty as Peggy’s—while Arnold’s eyes were ruddy and round, his broad nose protruding from a whiskered face, his hair pulled back from his brow in an unruly gray ponytail.

Peggy too, stared on as the two men met—her former lover and her husband. It was clear to Clara, as she watched her mistress, that some of André’s previous power over Peggy lingered still. She looked at him with all the yearning, all the desire, all the vulnerability with which she’d beheld him as a young debutante, tasting the sensuous pleasures of life for the first time at his hands. Her breath sounded uneven and labored, and even though it was dark, Clara was sure that Peggy’s face was flushed by some distant memory.

“Now, General Arnold, you come with your wife as well as your sister-in-law?” André squinted through the candlelight. “Is it my old friend Betsy Shippen Burd I see before me?” André fixed his narrowed brown eyes on Clara, causing her to squirm.

“No,” Peggy stepped forward, coming into the role she’d prepared for. “Major André . . . surely you remember my sister,
Clara
Shippen?” Peggy nodded at him with a meaningful expression, and a look of clarity came across André’s face.

“Ah, of course,” André played along, leaning in and kissing Clara’s hand. “Of course I remember Clara! Your . . .
sister.
My man, Robert Balmor, will be quite disappointed that he didn’t join me on this excursion.” André grinned suggestively, and now Clara was appreciative of the dark night that concealed her reddening cheeks. She remembered back to the night in the Shippens’ orchard, the kiss with Robert Balmor. How naïve, how foolish that Clara had been. It seemed as if it had occurred in another girl’s lifetime.

“Miss Shippen . . .” André turned back to Peggy and took her hands in his. “I mean, Mrs. Arnold.” His tone was flagrantly flirtatious as he looked from her face to her bosom, her bosom to her tiny waist. “My, how I would love to dance with you. For old times’ sake.”

Peggy stared back at him, her head falling sideways. “Oh?” She had no words to answer him, but her face made her desire embarrassingly evident. She stared at André as she would a piece of tender fillet after years of dining on salted river trout.

“Ahem.” Arnold cleared his throat, his eyes darting between his wife and this British officer.

“But I fear that your husband and I have very important matters to discuss.” André dropped Peggy’s hands.

“That we do,” Arnold piped up.

“Yes,” Peggy sighed, poorly concealing her disappointment. André leaned forward, disregarding Arnold now as he whispered into Peggy’s ear. Clara was close enough that she heard his words.

“We shall have to plan for a dance once you come over to my side. Shall we meet in New York City?”

“Anderson?” Arnold stepped forward, putting his arm proprietarily on his wife’s lower back. Peggy didn’t respond to André, but merely let out a low chuckle that told her seducer that she longed for such a reunion. In that instant Clara knew, without an inkling of doubt, that her mistress had not yet finished with John André. No, if Peggy Arnold were to successfully switch over to the British side, there would be dances, and dinners, and illicit late-night rendezvous just as there had been years earlier. Clara saw the scenes clearly before her. She felt a pang of pity for the husband who stood by, unknowing. It was not
yet
too late for him to renege, to save both his honor and his wife; after tonight, though, it would be.

Clara felt a leaden dread in her stomach for herself as well. She did not want to spend another day in the service of Peggy Shippen Arnold—dressing her, feeding her, covering for her nefarious schemes. Oh, how could she escape this life? Her mind wandered, unintentionally, to the life she’d allowed herself to hope for. A life of setting up a simple, comfortable home on a green hillside overlooking the Hudson. Of working—and working hard—but, working for herself. Of creating a garden and raising animals and welcoming Cal home to a dinner made from the foods they themselves had grown. Of tucking their children into bed each night and then spending the dark hours in Caleb’s arms. A new start in a new country with the man she loved.