Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (32 page)

Fairfax spotted
the trio of women and reined his horse back.
 
Helen waved greetings.
 
He
scowled at them.
 
"Tilden, keep
those women out of the way!"
 
A
dragoon marched back for them.

"Good
morning to you, too, lout," Helen muttered, irked at Fairfax's
rudeness.
 
Margaret's eyebrows shot up
with surprise.
 
Helen winced
internally.
 
She'd forgotten her role as
Fairfax's sister.
 
"Ah, well, he's
never forgiven his older sister for ordering him around while he grew
up."
 
Whether that mended her
mistake and convinced Margaret, she couldn't tell.
 
She punctuated the end of her comment with a toss of her head.

Herded onto a
rise by Tilden, they watched Fairfax, one hand on the rein, an upraised
three-foot-long saber in the other fist, spur his mount into a gallop toward
the westernmost line of men.
 
The woods
resounded with the thunder of the gelding as it hurtled up and down rows.
 
The horsehair crest of Fairfax's helmet
bristled, and his uniform blurred scarlet.
 
In less than a minute, he emerged from the course without grazing an
infantryman.
 
Approval exploded from the
soldiers.
 
A loud huzzah erupted from
Tilden, standing nearby.

"God,"
whispered Hannah, her exhaled breath as pale as her face.
 
Helen eased out her own breath, watched it
hang in the air before her.
 
Surely
Hannah had recalled, as she had, the night Francis Marion's Whigs had attacked
them, a night she'd rather forget.

Fairfax's
bellow penetrated the men's praise.
 
"Each of you work the course twice!"
 
He slid the saber into the scabbard, its
leather belt diagonal across his chest, and guided the gelding toward the
grooms.
 
"Davison!"

"Sir!"
 
One of the dragoons from their party on the
Santee Road sprinted forward, caught the reins of a waiting horse, and vaulted
into the saddle.

Helen glanced
to Margaret, who'd remained silent during the demonstration.
 
Dreaminess filmed the courtesan's eyes, and
her lips were parted and moist, as if she'd just emerged from
le petit
mort
.
 
Baffled, Helen tracked the object of her
gaze, and disbelief twisted her stomach.
 
Tarleton's mistress was infatuated with Fairfax.
 
Small wonder the brunette braved the
weather.

On the field,
the same grace with which Davison slew Marion's escaping Whig allowed him
success on the course.
 
Men chanted his
achievement, and he trotted his horse back to the grooms, beaming.
 
At Fairfax's order, another cavalryman
bounded for a horse, and it began all over again.

By the time a
dozen dragoons had completed the course, Helen's shock had transformed to awe
and respect.
 
Each infantryman knew he
wouldn't be trampled.
 
The exercise
transformed centuries of mistrust between foot soldiers and horsemen and, at
least beneath Tarleton's command, bound the two in a mutual pact of reliance
and conviction.

Readers in
London would devour such a detail.
 
Whose brainchild had the seminal idea for the practice been?
 
Intuition told Helen that Tarleton hadn't
created the exercise, but she suspected he'd be credited for it.
 
In yet another way, Fairfax had made himself
indispensable to the Legion's commander.

The lieutenant,
who had dismounted earlier, strode toward them.
 
His carriage exuded command and victory, and cold, archangelic
radiance suffused his expression: the elemental in service to the divine warrior.
 
He eyed Tilden and jerked his head toward
the men and horses.
 
"Queue
up."

"Sir."
 
The dragoon departed.

Helen clasped
her hands and hoped she looked as gushy as she sounded.
 
"Dunstan, that was brilliant!"

"Thank
you.
 
Return to camp."

Despite all the
moisture, the air crackled with confrontation.
 
Helen compressed her lips and met his stare head-on.
 
"But we're safe out here.
 
It isn't as though we've cannonballs
whizzing the air and men dying around us."

Margaret
brushed Helen's forearm with her fingertips and murmured, "Let us
return."

"Dear
sister, I cannot be distracted worrying about your health in such unwholesome
weather."
 
Fairfax slithered his
stare to Margaret before he returned it to Helen.
 
"How splendid of you to have already made a friend at
camp.
 
Do study her example of
obedience."

Sickened by a
jangle of humiliation in her chest, Helen swallowed a retort and spun around to
leave.
 
But Fairfax yanked her back to
him and kissed her cheek, his body pulsating with heat and triumph.
 
"
Obedience
," he whispered
before he released her.

Hannah and
Margaret caught up with her and didn't speak during the walk back — she
presumed to allow her time to digest the unpalatable lump of Army protocol
rammed down her throat.
 
When they
gained the porch of the house, drizzle increased to a steady downpour.
 
Margaret offered a soggy curtsy before she
headed upstairs to change.
 
Helen and
Hannah found seats near the fireplace, where company in the parlor hadn't
changed in their absence.

Helen brooded
over the glow of coals while her stockinged feet steamed dry.
 
If Fairfax had Colonel Tarleton trussed up
in his tote sack, it stood to reason that he had Tarleton's mistress in there,
too.
 
For then not only could he
maneuver her to inject a good word for him with Tarleton every now and then,
but he could count on her to help him knead Helen Chiswell into submission.

Margaret's
price?
 
She wasn't the sort of woman
who'd be satisfied with simple rewards, but surely she was shrewd enough to
appreciate the advantages of rank and not swap a colonel for a lieutenant.
 
Besides, from the ground he'd gained with
Tarleton, Fairfax wouldn't do anything to incur disfavor.
 
No, "silent, stealthy Mr. Fairfax"
must be gracing Margaret with manna that Tarleton and his uncomplicated gifts
of silk, jewelry, and perfume was too "busy" to provide.
 
Ill-tempered, Helen dallied over dark
musings of the form Margaret's manna might take before she caught herself,
nonplused.

Where had she
come by such base nosiness of a sudden?

A Legionnaire
stumped in through the front entrance and shook rain off his greatcoat like
water from a bear's fur.
 
To Helen's
surprise, the wives, their maids, and the other courtesan rushed the man in a
cooing mass of femininity.
 
He
protracted the moment, his leer lopsided.
 
"Easy now, ladies, I'm a might damp, and I wouldn't want to drip on
your gowns.
 
The roads out there are
turning to rivers.
 
No afternoon
dispatch.
 
Sorry to disappoint, but you
shall just have to wait for parade."

The ladies
retreated, dejected.
 
Helen shoved her
shoes back on and, while what was obviously the quartermaster's assistant,
Newman, conveyed a message to Tarleton's adjutant, she hastened over to the
postal carrier.
 
When he'd finished
speaking with the adjutant, she introduced herself to him.
 
"And I'm expecting a business letter
out of Wilmington.
 
I hoped it would be
waiting for me in Camden five days ago, but it wasn't, so I anticipate it will
be forwarded to camp."

"Yes,
madam.
 
Mail is chaotic out here.
 
Some days we get two posts.
 
Other times, with the Legion on the move, we
miss several days.
 
I'm sure Mr. Fairfax
will let you know."

Helen frowned
at him.
 
"My brother?
 
Why not you?"

"All your
party's mail goes through Mr. Fairfax first."

Sluggish to
grasp the implications, Helen deepened her frown but kept her voice quiet to
not attract undue attention.
 
"Why
should my mail and that of my servants go through him first?"

"Policy,
madam.
 
Except under special
circumstances, officers and men receive posts for themselves and their parties
each day at morning parade, around seven in the north field."

At last it hit
Helen.
 
As gatekeeper for their mail,
Fairfax could cut all four of them off from the outside.
 
Her bank draft from Badley, letters from
Enid or attorney Chapman, bank drafts and letters for Jonathan, letters to the
Pearsons such as business updates from Roger's apprentice back in
Wilmington.
 
No one in the party could
post a letter before it met Fairfax's approval.
 
And he could read their incoming and outgoing posts.
 
Her throat clenched, but she steadied
herself.
 
"Thank you, Mr.
Newman."

Hannah looked
up from mending Roger's stockings as Helen resumed her seat before the
fire.
 
"Everything under control,
madam?"

"Yes."
 
No need to worry Hannah, for everything was
under control: Fairfax's control.
 
Control was what the argument in the north field had been about.
 
Those who belonged to the Army — whether
they were soldiers or civilians — were subordinate to the Army and either
obeyed commands or incurred punishment.
 
The Army was no place for individual voices.

As Helen saw
it, since she'd led herself and three other people into a treacherous pit, she
was responsible for guiding them out of it.
 
And that meant choosing her battles.
 
She reached for her embroidery.
 
If Fairfax demanded control, well, then, she'd give it to him.

Chapter Thirty-Two

"YOUR
SISTER TO see you, sir."
 
At
Fairfax's command, the infantryman pulled back the marquee tent flap and
motioned Helen and Hannah inside, out of the late afternoon mist.

From behind a
foldable table, Fairfax rose and bowed.
 
He looked warm, clean, and dry in his spare uniform, not as though he'd
roughed it most of the day with legionnaires in half-frozen mud.
 
"Helen.
 
To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

An unfinished
letter lay on the table.
 
"You're
busy.
 
I shall return."

His expression
mobilized with curiosity, he covered the distance to her, caught her gloved
hand, and led her to a ladder-backed chair.
 
Perhaps he'd expected her to sulk and avoid him after the incident on
the north field.
 
"Have you dined
yet tonight?"

"No, I
—"

"Kennelly."
 
Fairfax dropped her hand and snatched a
purse off the table.
 
"Accompany
Mrs. Pearson to market and assist her purchase of supper for my sister's party."

Lantern light
sparkled on the arc of a coin through the air.
 
Private Kennelly caught it and bowed.
 
"Sir."
 
He stepped to
the tent's entrance and awaited Hannah.

Misgiving
tweaked Helen.
 
She hadn't planned to be
alone with Fairfax.
 
Nevertheless, she
nodded approval, and Hannah and Kennelly exited.

Fairfax removed
her cloak, hung it in an unlit corner of the tent near his damp coat, and
grabbed a folded blanket off his cot.
 
"Sit.
 
Dry your hands."
 
He tossed her a clean handkerchief of fine
linen.
 
"Wrap this blanket around
you.
 
And take off those shoes.
 
They look soaked."
 
She complied and settled her embroidery
basket and gloves beneath the chair.
 
He
brought a brazier close and swathed her feet in another blanket.

She allowed
herself to sink into the warmth of woolen blankets that smelled of him while he
rummaged around in a trunk near his cot.
 
Then he approached and swapped the linen handkerchief for a ceramic
cup.
 
"Drink this.
 
You do no one good by freezing to
death."
 
Stuffing the handkerchief
in his coat pocket, he returned to the table.

The most
exquisite brandy she'd ever tasted swirled down her throat and coursed her
veins, restored sensation to stiff fingers and toes.
 
For the next quarter hour, she listened to the scratch of pen on
paper, coals sighing in the brazier, a scatter of raindrops against the tent,
murmurs and laughter from without.
 
Daylight waned, and the interior, lit by only two lanterns, dimmed
further.
 
The peculiar utilitarian
furnishing of the tent disquieted her, prevented total relaxation.
 
Curiosity over manna slunk back like a
shadow from the lengthening day.
 
She
set the empty cup down and shut her eyes.