Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (46 page)

She hugged
herself and shook her head again, her heart breaking this time, her voice no
more than a croak.
 
"No."

"
No?
 
Bloody hell, can it be that you don't
understand the evil with which you've aligned yourself?
 
I'm not speaking of Tarleton and the
Legion.
 
I'm talking about
Fairfax."

"I can
manage Fairfax."

"'Manage'
Fairfax?
 
Christ, Helen, don't tell me
you've slept with him.
 
No one manages
Fairfax.
 
The gods only know how many
people he's murdered.
 
He flayed alive a
Spaniard in Alton."

Her stomach
flipped about again, this time with more fear.
 
"That's the second time you've told me that story about the flayed
Spaniard, but I've yet to hear any proof behind it."

"The
lieutenant who replaced Fairfax at the garrison in Alton."
 
David's voice held steady.
 
"Astute fellow.
 
He was assigned to solve the murder.
 
We're certain he figured it out, but the
redcoats pinned it on another Spaniard.
 
Damn them, protecting their own demon."

In the
darkness, she stared at him, intuition clanging.
 
The lieutenant who replaced Fairfax
.
 
"What was the lieutenant's name?"

"Michael
Stoddard.
 
But he's of no consequence
here.
 
I have to get you out of
camp."

Helen held her
breath.
 
Contrary to David's assessment,
she suspected Lieutenant Michael Stoddard
was
of consequence.
 
Neville sent secret messages to him about
Fairfax's itinerary in a compartment of the desk separate from the Epsilon
messages, implying that Stoddard was
not
allied with Neville's schemes
with Newman and Treadaway.
 
Rather than
trying to protect Fairfax, she'd received the distinct impression that Stoddard
was covertly aligned against him.

"Didn't
you hear me?
 
Get dressed.
 
Let's be off."

Helen
exhaled.
 
"I cannot leave my
friends behind.
 
They'll be
executed."
 
More realization
stunned tears to her eyes.
 
She didn't
desire
David.
 
Had she ever desired him, lusted
for him?
 
Yet she'd clutched him to
her.
 
Somewhere out there was a woman
who was right for him, and she'd waited years for the witch in Wilmington to
turn him loose.
 
"David, I-I don't
know how to tell you this except just to say it.
 
I've never been able to love you the way you've needed to be
loved.
 
I have to let you go."

A noise issued
from him as if he'd been punched in the pit of the stomach.
 
He cast himself at her feet and hugged her
lower legs.
 
"Helen, sweetheart,
you're in so much danger.
 
You cannot
realize what you're saying."

She ached to
stroke him again, soothe him, but that would only prolong the severing.
 
That moment, she had to break clean from
him, or he'd never find the strength to scramble away to safety.
 
"I've had weeks to think about
us
.
 
It's not fair to either of us to continue
this way.
 
And — and your family needs
you.
 
Your niece Betsy has had a
baby."
 
A tear leaked from her
right eye and rolled down her cheek.
 
She should have released him years ago, but she didn't have the
courage.
 
Her weakness had drawn him
into the snare, endangered his life.
 
"If you don't leave camp, if Fairfax catches you — oh, gods, stop
trying to be my hero!
 
I don't want to
be rescued!
 
I want you to leave, run
away!"
 
And live.
 
Yes, David must live, because the elementals
she battled cared little for him, but they were willing to dash him to pieces.

She bent over,
wrenched his arms from around her legs, and shoved his chest, pushing him
backward.
 
He sprawled on his buttocks
and hands near the doorway.

The first spear
of agony from the terminated love affair whistled out his lungs.
 
Rhiannon thinks you'll do some singing on
this dangerous quest of yours
.
 
Damn
all the gods!
 
Was David singing that
moment?
 
Was she really expected to
sing?
 
She clenched anguish between her
teeth.
 
"Leave!
 
Don't come back for me!"

For long
moments that wrenched and warped her soul, she feared he wouldn't go, and he'd
crawl back to her.
 
She doubted she had
the strength to cast him from her a second time.
 
At last, he shuffled to a standing position, his breathing
ragged.
 
"I won't
ever
stop
loving you."
 
He flung aside the
tent flap and staggered out into the night.

Slumped onto
her cot, she whispered, "Oh, yes, you will, David."
 
Then she buried her face into her pillow and
muffled the release of more than a decade of tears.

Chapter Forty-Six

REVEILLE THE
NEXT morning might as well have been metal tent spikes hammered into Helen's
temples.
 
From the way her heart ached,
the entire camp of legionnaires used it overnight for bayonet practice.
 
Her face felt swollen three times its normal
size, her eyes as though sand had scoured them.
 
The whole night, she'd questioned her judgment.
 
She didn't love David — or did she?
 
Her decision benefited all parties in the long
run — or did it?
 
She had good reason to
remain on assignment — or did she?

David had never
been rejected by a woman, but as the interior of her tent brightened with dawn,
Helen knew he'd recover.
 
He rolled with
life.
 
Some widow would take the sting from
his heart, and he would become the folk-tale prince of whom she'd dreamed.

Helen was about
as resilient as iron.
 
In a rare display
of self-indulgence, she spent the morning abed.
 
No folk-tale hero would ride into camp on a white horse and carry
her off to live happily ever after.
 
Camp was, in fact, inhabited by toads bearing officers' ranks.
 
No amount of kissing on them would affect
magic.
 
They'd each become more
toad-like.
 
Truly, she must not want to
be rescued.

But after
Hannah had brought her breakfast, replenished coals in her brazier, and
pampered her, and Jonathan and Roger had expressed appropriate concern from
outside her tent, she found the solitude splendid for speculating, with almost
no self-pity thrown in.
 
At some point,
she must tell Jonathan and the Pearsons David's news about Badley and Prescott,
along with the dark hole of irresolution that trailed it.
 
What had Badley and Prescott done with
Silas's money?

Epsilon.
 
Odds were that Neville knew what they'd done
with the money.
 
She wondered if she
could pry that information from him.
 
She also wondered whether he — or Fairfax — had heard of the demise of
the publisher-lord of Wilmington and his attorney.
 
Perhaps it was time to trump players around the table.

Close to noon,
Hannah brought in mulled cider and replenished her brazier.
 
"Right cozy in here, Mrs.
Chiswell."
 
Her good-natured
expression faded a little.
 
"Er —
I've some news that might be a little disappointing."

Helen stiffened
and studied her over the rim of her cider mug.
 
Oh, no.
 
She couldn't bear to
hear that David had been apprehended.

Hannah lowered
her gaze.
 
"I know you looked
forward to riding with Colonel Tarleton on the morrow, but Lord Cornwallis
requested his attendance in Winnsborough.
 
The colonel expects to be gone the entire day and sends apologies and
regards."
 
Hannah fidgeted,
curtsied, and let herself out.

Helen exhaled
gratitude into her cider mug.
 
Perhaps
the gods
did
listen to her.
 
She'd all but forgotten about that riding date and, after the events of
the previous night, was in no mood to be seduced by Tarleton.
 
Or Tarleton, Fairfax, and Margaret, as the
case may be.

Early
afternoon, Fairfax's voice outside her tent yanked her from a snooze.
 
"Helen, I would speak with you.
 
May I come in?"

Her skin
prickled at the silk in his tone.
 
She
didn't want him in her tent.
 
Thinking
about him in conjunction with the charges David had leveled upon him unnerved
her.
 
"No."
 
She faked a cough and hoped he wasn't there
to gloat over capturing David.

He sounded
surly.
 
"Why the devil not?"

"I'm
ill."

"You're
lying."

In disbelief,
she stared at the tent flaps, which he'd begin untying.
 
Panic slammed her, manifested a dry coughing
spell that sounded feverish, contagious.
 
At the end of it, her breath wheezed and her eyes watered.
 
"Leave me.
 
Allow me rest."

His hands fell
away from the tent, and his tone became more conciliatory.
 
"Very well, my wishes for your speedy
recovery.
 
I shall ride to Winnsborough
early on the morrow with Colonel Tarleton and return with him Friday the
twenty-ninth, mid-morning."

Of course he'd
accompany Tarleton.
 
Cornwallis's boots
needed buffing, too.
 
Helen doused her
smile.
 
It wouldn't do for Fairfax to
hear it.
 
She faked a sneeze.
 
"I'm going back to sleep.
 
Good bye."

He grumbled a
farewell.
 
She reclaimed her smile and
contemplated the ceiling of her tent, feeling better already.
 
Fairfax gone for twenty-four hours: a
holiday for everyone except Margaret.
 
Plus she'd earned a box seat for whatever mischief Neville hatched with the
mysterious Lieutenant Stoddard while the cat was away.

***

Neville looked
up in surprise from an examination of his horse's stirrup.
 
"Good morning, Mrs. Chiswell.
 
I heard you'd taken ill."

"I'm well
now."
 
She flashed what she hoped
was a radiant smile, aware that grooms at the corral watched.
 
"Headed out?"

"In a few
minutes, yes."

"Might I
speak with you first?"
 
He handed
the reins to a groom.
 
She looped her
arm through his and steered him from the corral out onto the trail, Hannah
following far enough behind to not overhear.
 
"How did you become such an accomplished dancer, living in the East
Florida swamps with those rangers?"
 
Behind in the corral, grooms cleared their throats.
 
So much the better if Fairfax returned to
camp the next day to hear gossip that she and Neville had become an item.

"I had
sisters."
 
He patted her hand, at
rest in the crook of his elbow.
 
"But you don't really want to talk about dancing."

His guard was a
tough one to break.
 
That grin of his
almost always failed to reach his eyes.
 
Helen decided to let him think she'd bought his sincerity and
laughed.
 
"Pshaw, you saw straight
through me.
 
My, you're in a buoyant
mood this morning."

"I might
say the same for you."

She slathered
snideness into her smile.
 
"Lieutenant Grumpy has gone to Winnsborough."

They shared a
chuckle like old warriors, or at least fellow conspirators.

"Awhile
back, I fancied you'd cultivated a soft spot for him."

Helen sniffed
with disdain.
 
"You mistook
affection for a certain amount of civility I must maintain because he provides
my cover on this assignment — which brings me to a question I have of
you."
 
She tilted her head at him
and frowned.
 
"I haven't heard from
Phineas Badley in a few weeks and was wondering whether you'd any
correspondence from him."

Neville
shrugged.
 
"It isn't unusual for
him to go months between letters."
 
He paused, and concern seeped into his voice.
 
"Peculiar that you haven't heard from him, considering that
he's your employer.
 
Rebel unrest must
have disrupted your posts."

She could
hardly believe her good fortune.
 
Neville had been excluded from Badley's hasty escape plans.
 
He was now stranded in the backcountry
without their guidance.
 
"Perhaps
you've heard from his attorney, Prescott, then?"