Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (54 page)

Horror slammed
the breath from her.
 
Fairfax
had
read
Enid's letter.
 
A shudder rocked her
composure.
 
I wrot this letter in
case Mr. David was not able to git threw to ye
.
 
Oh no, oh dear gods, no.
 
She'd lied, and he'd caught her in the lie.

Why hadn't she
the sense to return to Camden with Hannah and Roger?

Fairfax clicked
his tongue.
 
"Clearly, Mr. St.
James loves you very much.
 
When a man
loves a woman to that degree, he doesn't stop at exposing villains who
impoverish and endanger her.
 
He rides
to her rescue.
 
When was the last time
you saw David St. James?"

"In
Wilmington."
 
How much less
definite she sounded than just minutes earlier.

"Your
cloak.
 
Give it to me."

Worn and
agonized, she handed her cloak to him.
 
Her nerves jangled.
 
Cold rushed
to penetrate her tucker, jacket, and petticoat.

His fingers
worked along seams and hems in her cloak.
 
"Your tucker."
 
He rose
and dropped her cloak upon the other campstool.

Flushing, she
tugged her tucker from her jacket and tossed it to him.
 
"Neville, Newman, and Treadaway are
spies.
 
Execute them."

He held her
tucker up to lantern light for an examination and dropped it atop the
cloak.
 
"Newman and Treadaway are
disposable at this point.
 
However, I
must play Neville along farther."
 
A smile flitted over his mouth.
 
"I do enjoy playing him along.
 
Your boots and stockings."

She
scowled.
 
"Are you daft?
 
It's freezing in here.
 
Give me back my cloak and tucker."

Inhumanity
churned in his eyes.
 
He took a step
toward her.
 
"Hand them over."

His order
finally connected in her tired brain, and she gaped at him.
 
"You think I'm hiding secret messages
in my boots like a spy!"

"I think
you're capable of many things."

She yanked off
her boots and pitched them at him, dismayed when he caught both without being
struck.
 
After she'd thrown her
stockings and garters at him, the soles of her feet registered the ground's
frigidity, and her teeth began chattering.
 
"Get on with it."

Again, he
perched upon the stool, this time to conduct a meticulous examination of her
stockings and boots.
 
Her nose ran.
 
She honked into her handkerchief, jammed it
back into her pocket, and rubbed icy hands together.
 
At length, Fairfax rested elbows upon his knees.
 
"Your choice what to give me next: your
petticoat or your jacket."

"I shall
give you neither."
 
Cold, anger,
and fear shook her voice.
 
"Find a
woman to complete the search."

"Alas,
we're short on women.
 
Margaret and
those laundresses like you, so I doubt they'd be objective.
 
But fear not.
 
I'm your brother."
 
The smile he'd worn at the mention of toying with Neville scooted over
his mouth.

"No.
 
I won't remove my clothing for you like a
whore.
 
You must rip it off me.
 
And I shall let the entire camp know about
it."

His eyebrows
arched, and he chuckled.
 
"Helen,
darling, such theatrics.
 
Since you
insist, I shall contribute some theatrics, too."

He pushed up
from the stool.
 
She balled her fists
and braced herself, teeth clenched, heart whamming her throat.
 
Maybe she'd bloody his nose before he
overpowered her.
 
But Fairfax merely
extended the second canvas bag to her.
 
She said, "What's that?"

His smile
transformed into the appalling angelic radiance that overcame him when he
killed someone.
 
"Take a look
inside."

Limbs singing
with adrenaline, she snatched it from him and withdrew a fashionable man's
hat.
 
David, no, not David!
 
With her next breath, however, she realized
it wasn't David's hat, for she detected the scent of frankincense and
myrrh.
 
Agony excavated depths she'd
never imagined in her soul and heaved up a groan as bruised and battered as the
dead spies' faces.
 
Tears filled her
eyes.
 
"M-my god, what h-have you
done to Jonathan?"

Contentment
settled over Fairfax's countenance.
 
He
plucked the hat and bag from her stiff fingers and chucked them atop the bag
containing her desk.
 
After reseating
himself, he grinned.
 
"When last I
saw your professor, he was enjoying a spot of tea, surrounded by armed
legionnaires.
 
I'd never dismiss the
aptitude of his hands and feet.
 
So,
what shall it be next, the petticoat or the jacket?"

She groped her
pocket for her handkerchief again, blotted her tears, and blew her nose.
 
Her fingers wobbly with cold and ebbed
adrenaline, she unfastened her jacket and tossed it to him.
 
While he examined the seams, she removed and
wadded up her petticoat and pockets and threw those at him.
 
The skin over her entire body transformed
into gooseflesh, and the thin wool of her shift enhanced nearly every delicate
detail of her breasts.

He took his
time inspecting her clothing.
 
Her teeth
at a constant chatter, fingers and toes as white as frost, she hugged herself
in a futile attempt at seeking warmth.
 
He added her garments to the pile and sauntered over.
 
She fixed her stare upon the entrance and
tried to shut out the feel of his leer lapping her, over and over, like the
tongue of a jubilant dog.

"Hands at
your sides," he hissed.
 
She
obeyed.
 
From behind, his breath
caressed her neck.
 
"For more than
a decade, you and Mr. Quill carried on a platonic relationship that even the
Pope would approve.
 
But off I go to
Winnsborough, and
pffft
, you begin competing with Tom Jones and Fanny
Hill for endurance upon the mattress."

He breathed
down the other side of her neck.
 
Her
nipples contracted further.
 
"Mmm.
 
At first, I
postulated that my presence in camp dampened your lust for each other.
 
Then I realized some constant that warded
off your romance with him had changed and ceased to be.
 
Yes?

"What a
grand resolution for the new year.
 
Out
with the old, in with the new.
 
You
wasted no time seeking solace with Mr. Quill afterwards.
 
When was the last time you saw David St.
James?"

"W-W-Wilmington,"
she whispered.

"I don't
imagine you shall much favor me in a moment, after I've ordered you to remove
your shift.
 
The covert areas of a
woman's body supply delectable alcoves for hidden messages."

Violation of
the inner sanctum
.
 
The tent
contracted, darkened, and became the inside of a tool shed in Wiltshire.
 
She gagged.

"But
before that, I shall transact implied business with your professor.
 
Pity.
 
He's an invigorating chess opponent."

"D-David
in camp t-two days after the Y-Yule feast."

"December
the twenty-sixth.
 
Colonel Tarleton and
I were in camp then.
 
How did Mr. St.
James manage it beneath our noses?"

"D-disguised
as a p-peddler.
 
My t-tent that
night."

"Unimaginative.
 
You learned of the Badley-Prescott cabal
from him.
 
Enid's letter arrived a few
days later, confirmed that he'd visit you.
 
He offered protection in Pickens's Brigade?"

Helen tried to
laugh with black humor, but her stomach lurched instead.
 
"P-Pickens?
 
No.
 
P-protection w-with
the p-peddlers."

Fairfax walked
around and faced her.
 
"Peddlers?
 
He's a
halfwit.
 
When will you see him
again?"

She shook her
head.
 
"T-told him I d-didn't love
him.
 
F-final."

"Aha!"
 
He snapped his fingers.
 
"That's why you pretended illness the
next day.
 
Licking your
wounds."
 
He strutted away, no
longer fascinated with her half-frozen, three-quarters naked condition.
 
"Inconvenient of you to spurn him.
 
He could lead us to his father, Pickens, or
Morgan.
 
I wonder, how might you entice
him back?"

Lure David back
to betray him?
 
No.
 
"W-wouldn't work.
 
I d-don't want him.
 
He knows it."

"Damn."
 
He clasped his hands behind him, paced,
paused with his back to her.
 
"Two
nights after the Yule feast.
 
Bah, I'd
have wagered good money that you met Mr. St. James in your tent the night of
the Yule feast, when you and your maid sneaked off."

She managed the
ghost of a laugh.
 
Time to play the one
trump she possessed.
 
Steadying her
quivering jaw as best she could, she said, "Not David in my t-tent that
night.
 
Someone named Stoddard."

As if spun in a
whirlwind, he whipped around, his jaw slack.
 
"Stoddard?
 
Lieutenant
Stoddard, an officer of His Majesty?"

Her chattering
teeth had carried her beyond intelligible speech.
 
She nodded and sniffed, her nose dripping.

Fairfax strode
to her and slammed the campstool loaded with her clothing at her feet.
 
"Dress.
 
Expect my return in ten minutes."
 
En route to the tent flaps, he snatched up his helmet and the
sack containing Jonathan's hat.
 
By the
time he let himself out, she'd already dove into the pile and retrieved her
stockings.

Chapter Fifty-Five

HELEN ALMOST
SCALDED her throat in effort to down the tea.
 
Halfway into the second cup, she realized she'd drunk it black, no milk
or sugar.

Fairfax
slathered blackberry preserves on two cornmeal biscuits and slid the wooden
plate across the table to her.
 
While
she gobbled biscuits, he handed the teapot out of the marquee and ordered it
refilled.
 
By the time she finished
eating, the terrible ache of cold up her legs into her backbone had retreated,
she'd ceased to shiver, and her thoughts had assumed cohesion.

More tea
arrived.
 
He poured her another
cup.
 
Surely he was bursting to question
her about Stoddard, but he didn't rush her along.
 
So this was how Tarleton felt when Fairfax buffed his arse.
 
She fought the urge to shrink from him and
allowed steam from her tea to penetrate her nose instead.

He sat on the
other stool.
 
"I presume you've
thawed out, darling.
 
I queried into the
whereabouts of Badley and Prescott.
 
Unlike the frontier justice to which you've grown accustomed, I've a
capable network of informants.
 
They
tell me, for example, that your precious David St. James was recently spotted
playing piquet in Camden — for the moment, out of my grasp."

Fairfax was
swanking yet again.
 
Why hadn't David
run farther?
 
Determined to steer
conversation off him, she set her tea down and eyed the lieutenant.
 
"Badley and Prescott donated almost
everything to the rebel cause.
 
Realistically, much of the property Hannah and I recover will be
consumed for legal hogwash."

"Would it
surprise you to learn that Mr. Prescott was reported heading for the
backcountry?"

She waved her
hand in dismissal.
 
"It's the place
to go when you've a price on your head."

"He's been
spotted near Camden.
 
Mr. St. James was
in Camden.
 
Coincidence?"

She rolled her
eyes.
 
If she heard of the
Badley-Prescott-St. James conspiracy from Fairfax again, she'd shriek.

"I'm not
certain that losing pursuit is Mr. Prescott's primary goal.
 
He may be trying to intercept the
Legion."

"Yes, seek
the solace of his partners after the shock of losing so vast a fortune."

"What if
he plans to visit you?"

Laughter seized
her belly for about half a minute.
 
Wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, she said, "I haven't laughed
like that in so long.
 
You've quite a
sense of humor."