Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (49 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

JOY SNEAKED TO
Helen's mouth while she greeted the dawn.
 
She surrendered and laughed at the sky.
 
Her spirits sobered.
 
A grave
task lay ahead of her for the day, one for which she required full focus.
 
She must cut Rebecca free of the spy ring.

When she
returned to the campsite, the Pearsons awaited her before the tents.
 
"Top of the morning, madam."
 
Roger sounded more chipper than usual and
rattled the lit lantern.

"It's a
lovely day, madam."
 
Pre-coffee
perkiness from Hannah was about as common as tulips in December.

Happiness
blossomed across Helen's mouth again, and she looked away from the knowing
smile on the blonde's face.
 
Obviously
she and Jonathan hadn't been quiet enough.

The trio headed
south lugging buckets and breakfast gear, Roger's lantern a bob of light on the
trail.
 
Per Helen's instruction, the
Pearsons separated from her company at the kitchen to allow her a more solitary
appearance.
 
Liza and Sally descended
upon her, curious over her absence.
 
Within a minute, submerged in their stream of gossip, she'd rejoined the
camp women.

Her visit to
the creek to fill her bucket coincided with Rebecca's visit.
 
The girl clambered up the bank and spilled
her water.
 
Helen set down her own
bucket.
 
"Let me help."

Rebecca yawned
and didn't protest.
 
Helen toddled back
up the bank and placed the girl's full bucket at her feet.

Curious,
Rebecca peered up at her.
 
"Thank
you.
 
You're kind."

"My name's
Nell."

"Pleased
to meet you, Nell.
 
Rebecca."
 
The girl dropped a clumsy curtsy.

Helen returned
the curtsy with more grace.
 
A darted
glance around assured her that she and Rebecca wouldn't be overheard.
 
"Do you and your family have enough
food?"

The girl
grimaced.
 
"No one has enough
food."

"I can get
you flour or cornmeal because I know you need it."
 
The girl tensed with suspicion and reached
for her bucket, and Helen whispered, "Listen to me.
 
Those men for whom you're delivering
messages — no, don't lie about it.
 
I
watched you enter my mistress's tent one day.
 
Then I followed you to the postmaster's tent, and I saw Newman give you
flour in exchange for a message."

"In
service to His Majesty."
 
Rebecca
squared her shoulders.

"Why would
His Majesty need secrecy among his own?
 
Those men aren't in service to the king, but they
are
eager to
take advantage of your family's poverty."

Rebecca looked
ready to bolt.
 
"How do you
know?"

"Do
servants not have ears?
 
My mistress is
loyal to the king.
 
She's being used,
set up for a traitor, just as you are.
 
No one would believe the word of a servant against Army officers.
 
I have to find another way to stop it."

"What do
you want of me?"

"Don't
deliver more messages for those men.
 
If
you need flour, come to Mrs. Chiswell's campsite discretely.
 
Tell Mr. Quill your name.
 
He'll give you flour without asking anything
of you."

Her lower lip
quivered.
 
"They might look for
me."

Irritation
flared through Helen.
 
What valiant men,
Neville and Newman, terrorizing girls.
 
"They might.
 
But you know
how to make yourself busy and invisible."

"Yes."
 
She stared up at Helen.
 
"Are you from England?"

Helen pursed
her lips, annoyed at her own garrulity.
 
"There's your bucket.
 
I
must run.
 
Don't tell anyone we had this
conversation."
 
Without waiting for
the girl's response, she lugged her own bucket back to the kitchen.

It felt wrong,
intuition told her while she waited for water to heat.
 
During the trudge back to the campsite with
the Pearsons, she played out the conversation with Rebecca in her head.
 
Although she couldn't find fault in it, it
still felt wrong.

What felt right
was the sight of Jonathan in his greatcoat rising from a bench where he'd
watched the sunrise, his smile illuminated to rival the dawn.
 
"Let me help you with that water,
Roger.
 
Hannah, get Mrs. Chiswell's
clothing changed —"

"I thought
you wouldn't mind doing those honors this morning, Professor, seeing as how my
husband and I are occupied with the meal."
 
Hannah twitched her nose at Jonathan.
 
"I've apples and a cheese to cut up before these biscuits
and coffee get cold."

Roger placed a
bucket at the entrance to Helen's tent.
 
"Yes, hurry, Professor, don't let the water chill, or the lady
might have you flogged."

Stifling
laughter, Helen sashayed past Jonathan and ducked inside her tent.
 
He followed her, transferred the bucket
inside, and straightened with a grin.
 
"No point in trying to be quiet tonight."
 
He fastened the tent flaps.

She dropped her
tucker and apron on the cot.
 
"Alas, we've no time to tarry in here this morning.
 
Colonel Tarleton and Mr. Fairfax are due
back from Winnsborough.
 
And I'm
starved."
 
She paused while opening
the front of her jacket, and a wicked smile captured her lips.
 
"Will this end your nightly chess
games?"

"Of course
not."
 
He kissed her naked
collarbone.
 
"It's merely incentive
to achieve checkmate in one-quarter the time.
 
I'd much rather spend the night with you."

***

The men
strolled down to market, and Helen and Hannah took advantage of winter sunshine
to embroider and mend.
 
At ten, Tarleton
and his party thundered back into camp trailing a cloud of dust.
 
Helen added more daisies to her embroidery
project.

Close to noon,
Fairfax's aide, Kennelly, strolled into their campsite and bowed to her.
 
"I've come to inform you that your
brother didn't return with Colonel Tarleton.
 
He's still in Winnsborough."

She
frowned.
 
"For how long?"

"I'm not
privy to that information, madam.
 
You
might request an audience with the colonel to obtain more details."

An audience
with Tarleton meant his opportunity to reschedule their riding excursion.
 
But all posts to her party were being held
for Fairfax's screening.
 
She, Jonathan,
and the Pearsons must have access to their mail.
 
Flummoxed, she saw no option but to obtain Tarleton's intercession.

"Kennelly,
will you take a note to the colonel for me?"

"Certainly,
madam, if you write it quickly.
 
I'm due
to help strike Mr. Fairfax's marquee at noon and send his trunk to
Winnsborough."

"His
trunk?"
 
She regarded the
legionnaire.
 
This felt ominous.
 
"It sounds as thought he's not expected
back here for quite awhile."

Kennelly
shrugged.
 
"Again, madam, you might
ask —"

"— ask
Colonel Tarleton, yes."
 
Confounded, she set aside her embroidery and entered her tent to compose
the note to Tarleton.
 
When she handed
over the note, she remembered that her "camp woman" clothing was
among Fairfax's belongings.
 
"My
brother has some of my clothing.
 
I will
appreciate the opportunity to retrieve it before you break everything
down."

"Your
clothing?"
 
He appeared
perplexed.
 
"I've not seen a
woman's clothing in his marquee."

"He probably
stored it in his trunk."

"His trunk
is locked, and I haven't a key."

She
nodded.
 
"One of my attendants is a
locksmith."
 
Dubiousness crossed
the legionnaire's face.
 
"I assure
you that Roger won't damage the trunk or lock.
 
Come now, please allow me to fetch my clothing.
 
Or must I first obtain Colonel Tarleton's
approval for it?"

He threw up his
hands.
 
"Meet me at his marquee at
noon."

"Thank
you, Kennelly."

He took off at
a trot to deliver her note.
 
Noon.
 
That didn't give her much time.
 
She signaled Hannah.
 
"Fetch Roger and Jonathan, and all of
you meet me at Mr. Fairfax's marquee at noon.
 
Have Roger bring his picks.
 
And
have Jonathan bring his conversation skills."

"Yes,
madam."
 
The blonde paused long
enough only to deposit her sewing basket in her tent.
 
Then she hurried south on the trail.

For a moment,
Helen considered stashing a note to Fairfax in his trunk, a letter in which she
owned up to the petty theft of her own clothing.
 
Then she muttered, "Bugger him, forget it."

Overnight,
she'd realized that, in his mind, the moment to completely exonerate herself
from espionage had been that night in Wilmington, when Fairfax and George
Gaynes barged into her house looking for David.
 
Only by exposing David would she have attained exoneration.
 
In essence, she'd started off as suspect,
and each subsequent action had dug her in deeper.

Fairfax was on
a mission to expose as many spies as possible, bolster his image as an
indispensable guardian of His Majesty's empire.
 
Never mind that his net pulled in some who weren't guilty.
 
For weeks, he'd been expecting her to pop
open the Epsilon pustule.
 
But what
would have been her reward for doing so?

At some point,
you'll realize that you must tell me what you know.
 
On that day, the idea of toying with me won't hold half as much
appeal for you as it does right now.
 
She doubted Fairfax would let her go.
 
He excelled at twisting circumstantial evidence.
 
With that evidence, even she could make a
superficial case that she was a spy.

So his trunk
must travel to Winnsborough minus her clothing and minus a note of explanation
from her.
 
No point in giving him more
fodder with a written confession.

Chapter Fifty

JONATHAN HAD
DISTRACTED Kennelly with small talk, but Helen didn't know for how long.
 
"Hurry, Roger," she muttered,
crouched beside the locksmith.

Click
.
 
Roger withdrew his pick from the lock on the
trunk.
 
"Have at it,
madam."
 
He slid the opened lock
off and scooted aside.

The scent of
cedar wafted out to greet Helen, along with the darker scent she associated
with Fairfax.
 
Her clothing lay atop
several men's shirts of silk and fine linen.
 
She retrieved the garments, fancying a rubbery tug-of-war with residual
energy in the trunk, as if Fairfax had cast a spell to prevent her taking
anything.

Below the
shirts were the civilian suits he'd worn in Wilmington as Special Agent Black,
and stockings of silk and wool.
 
All the
clothing, even hers, was folded to a uniform shape that sent the hairs on her
arms standing out.
 
Without trouble, she
imagined Fairfax's hands pressing fabric, forcing every article of clothing
into submission.
 
Absurd, she told
herself.

The gods only
know how many people he's murdered...She peered deeper into the trunk,
half-expecting evidence to substantiate David's claims of torture.
 
No favorite instruments of barbarism
presented themselves — no knives, needles, chains, whips, saws, axes, brands.

Lower down, two
books caught her attention, a dictionary and an almanac.
 
How ordinary.
 
Her gaze detoured to the bottle of superlative brandy she'd
sampled and a small phial beside it.
 
The phial looked familiar.
 
Puzzled, she reached for it.

"Found
your garments, Mrs. Chiswell?"

She jumped at
Kennelly's voice, unable to believe what her hand grasped: the bottle of
laudanum that she had, on the Santee Road, convinced herself she'd left behind
in Wilmington.
 
"Yes."
 
She rose, slid the phial in her pocket,
turned to the legionnaire, and wrapped both arms around her folded
clothing.
 
"Thank you."

"You're
welcome."
 
Kennelly retrieved the
lock from Roger.

Outside in the
sunlight, Fairfax's scent haunted Helen.
 
She shoved her clothing off on Hannah.
 
"Wash it this afternoon."
 
She strode ahead to their campsite, her skin crawling.