Angel's Flight (2 page)

As he spoke, Angelica caught a glimpse of another self hiding inside this most masculine of men—a boy who liked to tease.

“Anyone who has fought a hand to hand,” he explained, “will tell you that there are times when discretion is definitely the better part of valor.”

“Discretion?” Angelica smiled up at him, into the harmony only the scar interrupted. “That seems a strange admission for a military man.”

“Not so strange, but I must confess I am giving myself advice, miss, quite as much as you. I would be interested to hear what cure you would prescribe for the present malady? Would it help if you Americans could elect men to parliament?”

“To be out-voted every time? The plain fact is that the charters in every colony provide us with assemblies of our own. They decide what taxes we shall pay. We should be given free rein to raise our own troops to defend ourselves. How can you, living across a great ocean, understand what it is to live here on the edge of a wilderness?”

“I’m not quite a newcomer, miss,” he replied. “I spent some years with the army in Upper and Lower Canada where I had an all-too-close acquaintance both with your Indians and the rascally French.”

“Excuse me, sir. I’m guilty of an assumption.” Any embarrassment Angelica felt was almost blotted out as she wondered whether it had been a French sword that had vandalized his otherwise perfect face.

“No apology necessary. How could you know anything about me?” He inclined his fair head graciously.

“So, you do understand us a little.” For some reason, it seemed important he understand her point of view. “We Americans did not wish to be disloyal to the king. The trespasses of parliament have forced these dire measures upon us.”

“Dire measures they are indeed, to engage the British army,” he replied solemnly. “While I must stand with the loyalists—I’ve been too long in the military for anything else, miss—I offer the hope your family does not suffer for convictions honestly held.”

“War is certainly never to be preferred, but history teaches that it is sometimes a necessity.”

Once again, the master of ceremonies, Mr. Morris, a man with a huge Adam’s apple and great ears that stuck out on either side of his wig, approached the center of the room, ornamental staff in hand.

“The Black Nag!” he announced, striking the floor with a cheerful thump.

“Are you free to dance again, Miss TenBroeck?”

“I am, but I do not wish to set tongues wagging by dancing two sets with a gentleman who was, until this evening, a stranger to me. Therefore, I thank you, sir, for your flattering offer, but I must decline.”

“As you wish.”

A pause followed, but Jack did not excuse himself and leave. Instead, he took up the thread of their conversation.

“What if I were to urge an economic reason for obedience and say that Britain is the natural market for your goods and the supplier of all your manufactures, right down to the needles you ladies ply?” he asked.

“Only because you keep us from manufacturing for ourselves,” Angelica retorted. “Why could we not make such things here? We have all the raw materials and plenty of water to drive mills and wood to fuel fires. Why must we buy everything from you? ‘Tis the unlawful actions of parliament which—”

“Miss TenBroeck,” a nasal tenor voice interrupted, “you are a
sadly misguided young lady.”

Angelica
started, for Major George Armistead, white wig, red coat and sword, had made a sudden and very unwelcome appearance at her back.

“I told you these colonies are quite astonishing, didn’t I, Carter?” The major drawled, leaning confidingly toward her companion. “The truly odd thing is that some of the wealthiest landowners and merchants are the loudest spouters of treason. The gentleman planters of the South echo the glum and dirty spawn of Cromwell, for they hope a war will relieve them of the debts they owe their London factors.
”

“Even,” he concluded, making a mocking bow towards Angelica, “their fair young daughters parrot these radical ideas.”

Angelica gathered herself to give the major a piece of her mind, but, before she could, Mr. Carter intervened.

“Excuse me, Major Armistead, but while you and I may not agree with Miss TenBroeck, does she not have a right to speak her mind, as does every free born subject of England?”

There was a pause in which the temperature seemed to plummet. “It is clear, sir,” Armistead replied acidly, “that you are well out of the military.”

“But I’m certain, major,” Jack swiftly rejoined, “that in twenty years of military service, I never did hear that the army exists to suppress an Englishman—or an Englishwoman’s—right of free speech.”

Jack took a step closer. Suddenly, he seemed much, much larger. His pale eyes shone with a wild, barely contained gleam—and they were fixed upon the major’s stern, pockmarked face.

Angelica held her breath. She was country-raised, and thus had observed the displays and mock battles of many species. Knowing Major Armistead for a sour-tempered bully, she experienced a rush of delight as she watched Jack Carter’s unspoken challenge force the detestable major to take an inadvertent—but utterly significant—step back.

***

“
Such dull clothes on that extremely good looking Mr. Carter! Like a Boston merchant.” Aunt Laetitia had been the first to bring up the mystery man.

Swaying in the cold darkness inside her aunt’s coach, Angelica replied, “Minerva Bradford says he has retired from the army, but he carries himself like a military man.”

“Quite. His Excellency received Mr. Carter with great civility. In conversation, he was most charming, but he does not look like the Dorset Carters at all. I knew that family very well, and they are always brown,” her aunt said with decision. “Quite brown eyes, skin and hair. The Carters all have freckles, too. Carter cannot possibly be his name.”

“But, Aunt Laetitia, it seems most unlikely the governor would have received Mr. Carter without knowing exactly who he was. He told me he was going to some family land by Kingston.”

“Yes, so he said when we were with Lady Tryon,” her aunt replied. “‘Tis a bad time for a visit north.”

“Exactly what Minerva said.”

“Those dirty rebels will execute him on some trumped-up charge. A terrible pity, for he is obviously a gentleman of breeding.”

“I have an idea Mr. Carter knows how to take care of himself,” Angelica replied.

Meanwhile, the coach rocked and rattled, carrying them up the wide dirt track of the Broad Way.

“Why did you refuse to dance the last minuet with Major Armistead?” Aunt Laetitia suddenly asked. “It looks extremely odd for you to be a wallflower.”

“I had already danced with the major once.”

“When he is practically your fiancé?”

“He is not—and he will never be, Aunt Laetitia.”

“Angelica, my dear,” her aunt snapped. “May I ask how the poor man has earned such scorn?”

Angelica didn’t answer, just played with the fringes of her shawl. They had been through this argument many times in the last two months.

“When I think that you turned him down flat! The second son of a baronet and a friend of his Royal Highness, the Crown Prince! I nightly pray,” her aunt said fervently, “that you will see the error of your ways.”

“He says my Uncle TenBroeck is a traitor, Aunt Laetitia.” “And so—not to mince words—your Uncle TenBroeck is.” “If Uncle William were alive, he’d not think that,” Angelica replied crossly.

“As your uncle’s trade was mostly with British merchants, he never could have supported the non-importation resolution of those madmen in that so-called congress,” her aunt replied tartly.

On the surface, she seemed such a dizzy snob, concerned about little but her children and the accouterments of her house. Beneath Laetitia’s facade, as Uncle Jacob often observed, lurked a store of hardheaded business sense.

“I may as well tell you I have written to your Uncle Jacob, enclosing a letter from the major regarding his offer and your refusal, Angelica.”

“You have taken that odious man’s side against me?”

“It was common courtesy to inform your guardian. When this foolish escapade in which your uncle is so recklessly engaging has been put down, it could prove his salvation—you having an influential husband.”

“Uncle Jacob would never ask me to marry a man like Major Armistead.”

“Are you so certain?”

“Absolutely.”

Angelica couldn’t explain the aversion she felt, but she despised Armistead. She detested his smugness, his pride of place, and the tone he took with his underlings. Angelica loathed everything about him, right down to the wiry black hair that grew on the back of his otherwise elegant hands.

“Well, what do you want, miss? I’m sure Mr. Cruger don’t suit you neither,” Aunt Laetitia cried, exasperation letting loose the dialect of her Devonshire birthplace.

“You are quite right.”

“Didn’t you tell me when you first came to stay that you were fleeing that farmer lout of a cousin? Good heavens, girl! You’ll be twenty-four soon. It’s high time you were married.”

“My dear friend, Miss Schuyler, isn’t married either, and she is one of the best tempered women alive.”

“Well, as dark-complexioned as that poor girl is, it’s little wonder. It’s shocking—the Indian look in that family. You wouldn’t remember her uncle, Colonel Cortlandt Schuyler, who went to Ireland. His nickname was The Savage. Thank heaven your family wasn’t given to bringing bastards home from the forest, dear. When Major Armistead raises his glass at the officer’s mess, it is to “the fair Angel of the Hudson.”

Angelica said no more. Six months ago, there had only been one unwanted suitor, and now here she was with two—caught, it seemed, between the monster and the whirlpool.

In retrospect, Arent TenBroeck, her first cousin and the other claimant for her hand, didn’t seem so bad. A widower with three children, he was a hard-working, decent man, twelve years her senior.

It would be a prudent match. Joining the properties Grandfather
TenBroeck had divided between his sons (her father Hendrik and her Uncle Jacob) would be good for the family.

Nevertheless, she’d come to visit Aunt Laetitia in order to avoid Arent’s increasingly warm courtship. Almost as soon as she’d arrived, General Washington lost the city. Along with the conquering British army came Major Armistead. Angelica had gone from the frying pan into the fire.

Hunted by Armistead, almost from the moment the city had changed hands, Angelica had come to see far more good in her burly cousin. Arent was a plain Dutch farmer, occasionally too blunt in his attempts to win her heart, but if it was to be one man or the other— Arent was the more acceptable candidate.

How much she had wanted to go home, but it was no longer safe for women to travel so far. The roads were full of soldiers, deserters, and bandits. By letter, Uncle Jacob and her Aunt Livingston agreed it would be prudent for Angelica to wait for things to calm down. Perhaps, Governor Tryon would grant her a safe conduct home to Kingston.

“Are you still planning to go to Beekmans’, dear?”

“Yes. Caroline has written to say that they’ll be glad to drive me back to you on Sunday. That is, if the weather settles—and if my cousins will indulge me.”

“Indulge themselves you mean, my dear,” her aunt replied dryly. “With this early spring, Mr. Roberts has been hard pressed to keep them at their books. They are both simply wild to spend a day on the river. I pray that a single day of sailing will suffice to tranquilize them.”

“Minerva gave me a marvelous center patch of printed calico for our quilt progressive—bluebirds guarding their nest. The colors and the rendering are so fine, I’m certain we shall all be inspired.”

“Blue? I certainly have plenty of that. Every shade, I’d guess.” “Yes. You do favor it.”

“Well, dear, we shall have to look at the remnants right after breakfast.”

“Lovely! Perhaps I can have the first row pieced before I visit Caroline.”

***

Angelica slowly awakened by swimming upward through swirling dreams of indistinct forms and figures, tantalizingly familiar, yet just out of reach of consciousness.

Dancing? Yes—I was at a wonderful ball, dancing with—with—yes!—that utterly magnificent Jack Carter
.
—

She opened her eyes to gray light filtering through the heavy damask draperies her Aunt Laetitia favored. Thinking it was early, she lingered in the last glowing remnants in the dream, now slowly slipping away in a warm wave.

She came fully awake when her fingers, crushing the soft cotton batiste of her nightdress, brushed lightly against her rosy, erect nipples outlined in the petit-pointe of her bodice. Startled, she sat up at once, throwing the heavy comforter off. Swinging her legs off the bed, she slipped down and padded to the window.

Pushing aside the draperies, she saw that the grayness she’d believed pre-daylight was, in fact, full day—dim and threatening rain. Full sails of cumulus tumbled across the sky. Angelica felt as heavy as the clouds looked—and, at the same time, light. She was still tied to tendrils of the dream—the endless mirror world where she had blissfully danced—the potent masculinity of her partner—the remembered glitter of admiration in those sun-on-ice gray eyes.