Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (3 page)

"Splendid.
 
Ratchingham's brandy is excellent.
 
Time for another.
 
Where's my host?"
 
The
merchant headed for the doors.

Quill studied
her, the electric blue of his eyes keen, as if he'd detected something in her
that everyone else had missed.
 
Terrified of what was to come, Helen Grey, soon to be Helen Chiswell, an
Anglican wife, turned away.
 
When she
glimpsed her reflection in a vase on a nearby table, she didn't recognize
herself at all.

Chapter Two

Wilmington, North Carolina —
1780

AT MARKET AND
Fifth streets, the fishy fog off the Cape Fear River thinned to divulge Helen's
destination: the brick manor home of publisher Phineas Badley.
 
She shivered at the chilly caress of
November mist beneath her wool cloak and petticoat, admitted herself past the
iron gate, and strode up the walkway.
 
Whatever "plum" Badley planned for her, she had to accept the
assignment.

The creditor
who held her mortgage had sold it.
 
Transfer costs would be dumped on her unless she employed an attorney,
and she couldn't afford one.
 
Uneasiness
gnawed her stomach.
 
She squashed it
down and raised her chin.

No sooner did
she gain the front porch than the bewigged butler, Charles, whisked the door
open and gestured her into a paneled foyer.
 
"Good to see you again, madam."

She knew he
meant it.
 
"Thank you."
 
Warmth enveloped her when he shut out the
fog, and her mood lifted a bit at the scents of orange and cinnamon.
 
But closer scrutiny revealed fatigue beneath
Charles's eyes and sunken cheeks.
 
He'd
never looked haggard in
her
employ.
 
If only she hadn't had to let him go.
 
Guilt and concern nudged her.
 
From her first day in Wilmington, Charles had been considerate of
her.
 
"How are you?"
 
He assisted her out of her cloak, his face
trapped in shadow.
 
Mystified, she
lowered her voice.
 
"Is all
well?"

He opened his
mouth to speak but paused when a maidservant entered the foyer to dust the
dark, walnut banister.
 
"Not to
worry, madam.
 
Mr. Badley will join you
presently in the parlor."

Without another
word, he led her upstairs and closed her within the parlor, alone.
 
Ticking from the clock on the mantle and
sighs from wood burning in the fireplace cozied the room.
 
She ambled past two overstuffed couches and
a table.
 
Pensive, she gazed out the
window at an afternoon sky the hue of pewter.

Ever since the
rebels chased Governor Martin from North Carolina five years before, Badley had
steered his magazine's content to the bland middle ground.
 
Otherwise, his Loyalist press would have
been shut down.
 
Perhaps he'd have her
cover Mrs. Page's supper with the vicar.
 
The old lady had a penchant for entertaining town peacocks she
knew.
 
Or the publisher might desire an
article on Mr. Flynn's portrait sitting.
 
The visiting artist had painted prominent area residents including her
neighbor, William Hooper, and others from the Congressional Committee of
Safety.
 
Committee of Safety.
 
Bah.

A bequest from
Helen's late husband's estate subsidized production of
Badley's Review
,
so the publisher possessed funds to dispatch his journalists after sensational
leads.
 
She wrote about tea parties and
edited the men's stories.
 
Women didn't
cover events that convulsed the colonies: riots, battles, protests.
 
Meetings of those rebel popinjays on the
Committee of Safety.

She turned her
back on the window and yawned.
 
A
self-inspection in the mirror above the fireplace sent her rearranging her lace
tucker to ensure modesty.
 
She could do
nothing about the smudges of sleeplessness beneath her eyes, but at least the
walk had raised healthy color in her cheeks and a sapphire sparkle to her eyes.

Badley's tread
thudded the stairs.
 
He flung open the
door, face corpulent, wig freshly powdered.
 
"Mrs. Chiswell, good of you to take tea with us.
 
Do sit down."
 
He waved her to the couch nearest the fire, lace on his cuffs
aflutter, and waddled for the opposite couch.

Us
?
 
Who else was invited to tea?
 
Helen eyed the open door and lowered herself
to the cushion, her back straight.

The other couch
groaned when Badley deposited his rump on it, and she caught a whiff of herbal
poultice from his gouty knee.
 
He tugged
at his embroidered silk waistcoat to relieve stress his girth imposed on the buttons.
 
"I've a splendid opportunity to offer
you.
 
Since the gentleman who'll join us
shortly has already been briefed, I shall apprise you while we start on
tea."

Maidservants
entered the parlor with a steaming kettle and china tea service for three.
 
After hot water was poured into the teapot,
the maids closed the door behind their exit.
 
Badley, humming "The Death of General Wolfe," spooned real tea
leaves — not a colonial concoction of tree bark and weeds — from a canister
into the pot, stirred the infusion with a silver spoon, and draped a little
quilt over the pot to keep it warm.
 
A
sealed note lay atop a cloth on the tray, but he made no move to retrieve
it.
 
"I've noticed how wasted your
talent is, writing about Wilmington society."

She sat still
and said nothing.
 
Disgust coiled her
neck.
 
Badley's circuitous approach
implied her new assignment was sheer ennui.

He drummed
plump fingers on his thighs, covered in buff-colored breeches of fine
wool.
 
"My magazine has attracted
the attention of an editor at the
London Chronicle
."

Ah, the
gentleman invited to tea must be the editor.
 
Perhaps he traveled with a wealthy mother who required a widowed
companion in Wilmington.
 
While keeping
the dowager company, Helen would interview her and pen the family history.
 
There'd be money in it for her.
 
Not likely enough money for an attorney, but
the publisher's assignments remained her primary source of income.

Unless, of
course, she encouraged the lust of several merchants.
 
She allowed herself a second or two to imagine sloppy kisses,
flabby buttocks, and rank breath — just long enough for stomach acid to sour
the back of her throat.
 
Then she
dismissed the thought.

"Your
skills convey professionalism upon the
Review
.
 
I've made certain the editor knows it."

She studied
him, her doubts plowing a chasm of mistrust.
 
Generosity was out of character for Badley.
 
A hefty purse must await him for his effort.
 
Or perhaps an elixir more alluring than
money.

He blotted his
forehead with a perfumed handkerchief, the diamond in his ring prisming
light.
 
"Dreadful business, Major
André's execution last month.
 
And Major
Ferguson's slaughter at King's Mountain — they say he had two-dozen balls in
him before he dropped.
 
Then those rebel
barbarians desecrated his body.
 
We must
seek out stories that yield a positive picture of His Majesty's efficacy at
managing the rabble here.

"London is
enamored of that dashing colonel of the Legion, Banastre Tarleton.
 
Young fellow, all of twenty-six."
 
Badley peeked at the tea.
 
"The Earl Cornwallis's favorite.
 
He showed Buford for a fool in the Waxhaws
and ran Sumter off half-naked after Camden, what hey?"

Get to the
point, Badley
, she thought, weary, tense.
 
More to the point, where would she find enough money for an attorney?

"Londoners
want a candid portrait of the Lion of the Waxhaws.
 
How do his men express loyalty to him and convivial spirits after
a victory?
 
With what terror do rebels
cower at the approach of the Green Dragoons?"
 
Badley winked at her.
 
"Do the ladies swoon over him?"

Gods, how she
wished she'd never taken that devil Prescott's advice about mortgaging her
house.
 
The mortgage had seemed a
reasonable idea back then.
 
She'd run
out of slaves, servants, property, employees and investments to sell or divest
while paying off Silas's gambling debts.

Badley winked
again.
 
"London wants to know what
it's like to ride with the Legion.
 
So
the editor is experimenting with a new format, a features magazine.
 
I've been asked to send a journalist out
with the Legion for a few weeks."

Without a doubt,
one of the men had a gripping assignment awaiting him.
 
Then she would have editing dilemmas for
weeks.
 
No wonder Badley wooed her on
the idea first over tea.
 
But surely he
was proceeding in a naïve manner.
 
"Come now.
 
The colonel
won't give Warwick, Sellers, or Ricks a
candid
view of his unit.
 
Your man will get what Tarleton wants him to
see — Odysseus, Alexander — if he isn't accidentally killed."

On the verge of
response, Badley plucked the note off the tray and broke the seal.
 
Helen watched his mouth tighten with
disappointment as he scanned the scrawled message.
 
"Bother."
 
He
tossed the note into the fire, oriented his attention on her, and simpered.
 
"Why let Tarleton know he has a
reporter in his midst?"

"Faugh.
 
Don't insult his intelligence by attempting
to pass your man off as a recruit, sir.
 
Warwick would soil his breeches and weep for his mother at a hint of
battle.
 
Sellers would pilfer the rum
—"

"I'm
delighted to hear you concur with my assessment of the lads."
 
He stirred the tea and poured some through a
strainer into a cup.
 
The aroma beckoned
to her, and the dark amber color seduced.
 
"Few are better suited for the assignment than
you
."

She blinked at
him.
 
"Excuse me, sir, I
misunderstood —"

"
You
for the assignment.
 
You heard correctly.
 
You
."
 
He extended the cup to her and pushed the creamer and sugar bowl
toward her.

Astonishment
clobbered her.
 
Then she noticed his coy
smile.
 
A wave, half relief and
half-disappointment, wiped out the shock.
 
She accepted the tea, poured in enough milk to lighten the amber, and
sipped.
 
"You've quite a sense of
humor, sir."

"I'm not
jesting, madam."

She drank more
tea.
 
"Mmm, divine.
 
Do you fancy to pass me off as a recruit,
then?
 
Or perhaps a slattern?"

His smile
enlarged.
 
"The sister of an
officer.
 
A gentlewoman."
 
He poured tea for himself.

As she watched
him hack the head of a cone of sugar into the teacup and top off the cup with
milk, it occurred to her that he might
not
be jesting.
 
Her stomach flip-flopped, mostly with
thrill.
 
But exactly what sort of
assignment did Badley offer her?
 
"A gentlewoman accompanying a kinsman officer on campaign cannot
project anything less than aristocracy."

He slurped
tea.
 
"You'll need your own tent
and food supply, at least two men to set up camp and transport your property,
an appropriate wardrobe, a woman to help you dress — your Enid Jones would be
an excellent choice for that."

Heavens, Badley
was
offering her the assignment — a
man's
challenge.
 
She mustn't let him know how thrill peppered
her spine.
 
"Tarleton has no time
for such fluff."
 
She set down her
cup.
 
"The key to his success has
always been the mobility of the Green Horse."

"Quite.
 
But the baggage with the 'fluff' eventually
catches up.
 
You'll land an adequate
enough story traveling with the sutlers, artisans, servants, wives and brats —
and yes, the slatterns.
 
And the best
part is that the
Chronicle
is funding the experiment."

"
All
of it?"

"Yes, plus
a salary for you amounting to twice your daily rate."

Her stare
narrowed.
 
The scheme had the appeal of
a perfumed, jeweled courtier whose teeth proved rotten.
 
Badley had something afoot, but for the
time, buoyed by excitement, she slammed the door on her instincts.
 
Good gods, she'd landed a goliath of a
feature
.
 
"What of this officer?
 
Even if he agrees to pass me off as his
sister and deceive Tarleton, you cannot expect a provincial to bear enough
cultural resemblance to me and be credible as my brother."