Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (8 page)

The Anglican
Church was the religious institution of choice for affluent merchants,
artisans, politicians, and military officers: all aspirants within King
George's empire.
 
In the colonies, one
found many flavors of Christian fervor, not to mention Judaism, Unitarianism,
Rationalism, Naturalism, and even Atheism.
 
No one in Wilmington expected the decent widow of a wealthy merchant to
practice an ancient pagan faith.
 
That
was for the lower classes.
 
Hence
Helen's pre-dawn practice and disguised shrine in the back yard.

At least David
didn't harass her about covertly observing the rituals of rustics.
 
He never set foot inside church except for
baptisms, funerals, and weddings.

Weddings.

Do you want
me to marry you?
 
I would do it, if
that's what you want
.
 
Disbelief and
loss raked her heart.
 
More than a
decade they'd known each other, yet he'd flung a marriage proposal at her as if
he'd received an ultimatum.

She dodged a
crucial question awhile before it cornered her.
 
Did she want to marry David St. James?
 
Her heart didn't leap for matrimony.

She arrived
home just before one beneath a cloud of pensiveness, unable to fathom Enid's
chipper mood.
 
Then she remembered that
Charles was due to visit and hurried through a cup of coffee.
 
One o'clock came and went.
 
Charles was running late.
 
Unable to bear another second of Enid
dusting the parlor, tidying pillows, and, in general, fidgeting like a smitten
fifteen-year-old, Helen donned her straw hat and retreated to the garden to
read.

Later, a
subdued Enid meandered out to deliver the day's post, one letter.
 
Helen squinted up at her.
 
"Did Charles come by?"

"No,
mistress.
 
It's going on two
o'clock."

Hair tingled on
the back of Helen's neck.
 
Charles was
punctual.
 
For Enid's sake, she withheld
concern from her expression and voice.
 
"He
must have been sidetracked with some odious chore Badley inflicted upon
him.
 
Not to worry.
 
I'm sure he'll make it up to you.
 
Speaking of Badley, I must return for tea at
three today."

"Ah.
 
Will you be wanting to change?"

"Yes.
 
The rose silk and garnets just as soon as I
have a look at today's post."

"Very
good, mistress."
 
Enid retreated
into the house.

Helen broke the
seal on the letter.
 
An introduction
from the new holder of her mortgage announced that her next payment was due in
two weeks.
 
The amount was twenty
percent higher than her current payment.
 
Her mouth went dry.
 
Twenty
percent
.

In her study,
she opened the ledger of household income and expenses.
 
For a quarter hour, she calculated and
projected in attempt to make ends meet, factoring in that twenty percent
increase.
 
Then she slumped in the
chair, her earlier euphoria about the assignment stomped out by reality in her
ledger, replaced with the queasy sensation of being backed into a corner.

At most, she
could find an extra five percent.
 
She'd
have to negotiate with Badley that afternoon for an advance to cover either the
twenty percent or an attorney's retainer.

The assignment
with the Legion had arrived just in time.

Chapter Six

AT THREE, HELEN
stepped onto Badley's porch and whipped open her fan.
 
Flushed from the walk, tendrils of hair escaping her mobcap, she
longed to cool down.
 
When Charles
didn't open the door, she rapped on it, shaded her eyes, and peered through a
window.

A maidservant
bustled to the door.
 
"Afternoon,
madam.
 
Here to meet Mr. Badley for
tea?"
 
She drew a breath, as if
she'd been running.
 
"He's —"

"Upstairs
in the parlor, I know.
 
Where's
Charles?"

The woman
opened the door wider for Helen.
 
"I don't know.
 
No one
knows.
 
He stepped out for a pint last
night.
 
Said he was going to
White's.
 
No one's seen him since."

Helen's jaw
dangled, and concern bored her stomach.
 
She envisioned Charles drowning in the Cape Fear River, pushed there
after a footpad robbed him.
 
"Why,
that's contemptible!
 
Hasn't anyone been
out to look for him?"
 
She whisked
off her straw hat.

The maidservant
shrugged.
 
"Shall I show you to the
parlor?"

"I know
the way."

"Yes,
madam."
 
With a bobbed curtsy, the
young woman sprinted for the rear of the house.

Irked that the
servant hadn't offered to take her hat, flabbergasted over Charles's
disappearance and the maid's lack of concern, Helen took a few deep breaths and
climbed the stairs at leisure.
 
No sense
in compounding her agitation.
 
There was
nothing she could do for Charles at the moment.
 
On the way up, she fanned herself.
 
Her lips and cheeks became rosy when she sweated, and she was in
no mood to tolerate Badley's gawking at her invigorated condition.

Outside the
open parlor doors, he awaited her with a nervous smile that converted to
unabashed ogling.
 
"Delighted you
could make it today, Mrs. Chiswell, and I must say, you look splendid."

She drew level
with him at the top of the stairs, her head held high.
 
"Where is Charles?
 
A maidservant says he has been missing for
twelve hours."

"Yes, I
have Fergus and Abraham looking for him, and I've notified authorities that he's
missing, if you can call them authorities on anything except rebel
idiocy."
 
He slipped the hat from
her fingers and steered her for the parlor.
 
"But this moment, we must straighten out a misunderstanding between
you and the gentleman in our assignment."

"What are
you talking about?
 
I haven't met
—"
 
The man gazing out the window
on the other side of the parlor turned to regard her.
 
Disbelief and rage boiled up Helen's neck like a blast of steam
and torqued her lips into a snarl.
 
"
You
!"
 
She
shook off Badley's hand.

"Delighted
to meet you again, Mrs. Chiswell."
 
Lieutenant Fairfax bowed his head, unflustered.
 
"As Mr. Badley commented, you look
splendid."

She spun about
to find the publisher braced against the closed door with the look of a child
caught sneaking sweets.
 
"Phineas
Badley, at one-thirty this morning, that lout and his ruffians woke us and the
entire neighborhood.
 
He impersonated an
agent from George Washington, enlisted the help of the Committee, accused me of
harboring a spy, and searched my house.
 
One-thirty in the morning!"

"Er, yes,
so he informed me."

Oh, gods, of
course the assignment had seemed too good to be true.
 
Knowing what she knew of Fairfax, she wouldn't accept it on the
terms Badley had offered.
 
She'd have to
find another way to handle the mortgage dilemma.
 
Disappointment scalded her throat.

No.
 
She wouldn't give up the feature to Warwick,
Sellers, or Ricks.
 
If she put her house
up for sale that day, she wouldn't realize profit from the sale in time to make
the new mortgage payment.

Was there an
option she wasn't seeing?
 
Options.
 
Opportunities.
 
Twelve years earlier, on a brig bound for America, Jonathan had
insisted that she focus less on having opportunities than
seeing
them.
 
She flung back her shoulders with
dignity.
 
If Badley wanted her for the
job, he'd work it out.
 
"Mr.
Badley, I will not participate in an assignment with Lieutenant Fairfax on the
terms you specified yesterday.
 
If you
want me for the feature, you must provide acceptable options."

"Let us not
be rash.
 
As I've said, it was a
misunderstanding.
 
He wishes to
apologize.
 
At least listen to
him."

Helen
scrutinized Badley's face.
 
Men like
Fairfax didn't apologize unless it provided a means to an end.
 
He and Badley sought some outcome together.

How important
was the outcome to Fairfax?
 
The thought
that she might witness some groveling amused her.
 
"Apologize?"
 
She pivoted and loaded venom into her smile.
 
"Fancy that!
 
Mr.
Badley believes you've an apology for me."

He stood at
attention.
 
"My intelligence
sources were ill-informed about the spy.
 
I apologize for causing you discomfort early this morning."

By daylight
streaming in through the windows, she received her first good look at him.
 
It reinforced her earlier impression of
education and aristocracy.
 
He was also
handsome, but no emotion moved in his face to encourage interaction with him,
and he invested no contrition in his apology.
 
She felt her ire swell.
 
Did he
fancy her a lamebrain?
 
Who in hell did
he think he was?

Badley shifted
from one foot to the other.
 
"Er,
Mr. Fairfax, who is this fellow you've mistaken for a rebel spy?"

"His name
is David St. James."

"David St.
James, a
rebel
?"
 
Badley
squinted at Fairfax.
 
"Oh, come
now, sir.
 
I know the rebels in this
city — in much of the Carolinas, too.
 
St. James is a gambler, an adventurer, and a bit of a ladies' man, but
he's no rebel spy."

"As I
said, my intelligence sources were ill-informed."

After what
David told her the night before, Fairfax's statement registered as absurd to
Helen.
 
He baited a trap for David with
the shammed apology.
 
And there was
something weirdly familiar about Fairfax.
 
His accent confirmed him as a native of the Salisbury Plain, and from
his acerbic comment about druids, he must share her disdain for what had become
diversion and recreation for the aristocracy.

When she sailed
for America, he'd have been no more than thirteen or fourteen.
 
Did she have a more personal remembrance of
him from her childhood in Wiltshire?
 
Was he Lord Ratchingham's bastard son, perhaps?

However
arrogant he was, he wasn't stupid.
 
How
many convolutions of the truth would he employ to get what he wanted?
 
And was David all he wanted?
 
"Exactly what made you decide you were
wrong about the spy?"

"I
discovered my intelligence sources were ill-informed."
 
Still at attention, still no emotion.

A circular
argument that gave nothing away.
 
Helen
grew edgy, realizing she wasn't in as much control of the scene as she'd
imagined a minute before.

"There!
 
You see?
 
An apology."
 
Beaming, Badley
reopened the door, called for tea, and escorted Helen to a couch.
 
"Let us all enjoy tea and discuss this
glorious opportunity."

Back to the
"glorious opportunity."
 
Her
instincts reminded her that both the assignment and Fairfax were
dangerous.
 
What feature was worth
spending weeks with him underfoot?
 
How
important was it to Badley that
she
be the reporter on assignment, not
one of the men?
 
And why?

The lieutenant
shifted to stand before the couch opposite hers.
 
Helen, also standing, held his gaze while the maids arranged the
tea service, left the parlor, and closed the door.
 
"Mr. Badley, I haven't yet heard Mr. Fairfax account for why
he's agreed to deceive Colonel Tarleton: participate in your scheme to plant a
journalist among the Green Dragoons."

Irritation
rippled Fairfax's expression.
 
"How
is that deception?"

"The
colonel has an image to maintain.
 
Journalists report facts."

The irritation
flared.
 
"The
facts
are that
Colonel Tarleton is one of the finest officers His Majesty has in the field: a
brilliant tactician, revered by his men, fearless in battle, ruthless with
rebels.
 
But he has no patience for
journalists he perceives as meddlers, distractions, reporters from magazines
with no solid political connection."
 
Non-emotion reclaimed the annoyance on his face.
 
"Many officers envious of his talents
seek to downplay his merits and brake his advancement.
 
He must receive the credit he
deserves."