Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (2 page)

She inspected
Jacques from head to toe.
 
A bit more
gray at his temples.
 
"You slunk
into town two days late for Elijah Carey's funeral but just in time for another
dance."

"We French
have such instinct about parties,
non
?
 
But had I attended the funeral, I am afraid my respect for
Monsieur
Carey might have been outweighed by memories of the — er — masquerade."

She
laughed.
 
"My goodness, Susana and
I thought about it during the funeral, and the Careys admitted they did,
too!"

"There,
you see?
 
The town biddies milled the
prank to such extent that Carey and your father are now legend.
 
You have to admit it would not have smelled
so scandalous had
Madame
Carey not taken two hours to realize that it
was Will in her husband's clothing."

Sophie, David,
and Susana had hooted together over the "masquerade" for months,
wondering whether their father would have pushed the joke so far as to climb in
bed that night twenty years earlier with the wife of miller Elijah Carey.
 
They finally decided that although their
father had his share of vices, Mrs. Carey hadn't been one of them.
 
No, Will St. James, now a widower for a
decade, still wore his wedding band.

Will.
 
She glanced over the grounds without seeing
him.
 
By then, more than half of Alton's
forty-man garrison of redcoats was present for the dance.
 
Fiddle scratch from two players warming up
atop a wooden platform rose above the buzz of folks on the dance ground already
surrendered to the lure of liquor and long shadows.

Jacques slipped
his hand into hers, reclaiming her attention.
 
Black eyes aglitter, he took his leisure inspecting her from head to
toe.
 
"Like fine wine, you grow
more delectable with each passing year."

She
smiled.
 
Typical Frenchman.
 
"Pshaw.
 
You've just come from a bottle of brandy at the Red Rock."

"
Mais
oui
!
 
It does my old heart
good."
 
His gaze took in her bosom,
and his smile became a leer.
 
"I
suppose I am too late to claim a dance from someone as slender and graceful as
you."

"Not at
all, but my father has the first dance."

"Of
course.
 
May I have the second dance,
then?"

"You
may."

"And
perhaps the sixth also?"
 
He
wiggled his eyebrows.
 
"And the
twelfth?
 
I feel the most fortunate man
alive."

She laughed and
hugged him again.
 
"I'd love to
dance with you all night."

"Ah, for a
moment, I thought the whispers I heard were true, that an English is courting
you."
 
Misinterpreting the
exasperation on her face, he gripped her hand.
 
"
Non, non
, not an English pig, Sophie!
 
Tell me it is not so."

Behind her, she
heard Susana's squeal.
 
"Uncle
Jacques!"

He released her
hand, and while he and Susana embraced, Sophie slipped into the crowd.
 
She didn't enjoy watching her younger sister
favor Jacques.
 
It came too close to
ingratiation, as if Susana imagined the Frenchman had a fortune stored
somewhere, and she could earn some of it by flattering him.
 
And when it came to Edward Hunt, she knew
Jacques wouldn't accept her explanation of chess games and business discussions
either.

From the
platform, the mayor's voice boomed across the crowd.
 
"Welcome everyone to Zeb Harwick's fifteenth dance.
 
Let's thank our fiddlers for
coming."
 
Applause followed.
 
"And let's thank Zeb for making all
this possible."
 
More applause and
enthusiastic shouts of "Huzzah!"
 
The wealthy cattle farmer had given them all a magical three-hour
reprieve so they could forget debt and disease and the frightening way
Loyalists and Whigs were bashing each other's brains out in neighboring South
Carolina.
 
"First tune tonight is a
reel.
 
Grab your partner!"

Noise escalated
as people swarmed from the sidelines to the dance ground, rousing the smells of
dung and straw, rosewater and sweat, and onions and whiskey.
 
Sophie searched in vain for Will.
 
One of several British privates standing
near the ale scored a fourteen-year-old girl for the first tune and guided her
to a line with a flourish.

Sophie smiled
at the girl's blush, remembering being fourteen, remembering her wedding the
following year to blond-haired, blue-eyed Jim Neely, the apothecary's apprentice.
 
The year after that, she'd borne her
daughter Betsy, and her first husband lay in his grave, dead of pneumonia.

The town
hornsmith stuttered out an invitation to dance, and she glanced at his
fingernails.
 
She couldn't help it.
 
No one else chewed fingernails to nubs the
way he did.
 
She thanked him and
declined.
 
His bow spasmodic, he
hastened on to the next eligible female.

Across the
ground, two more soldiers found partners.
 
Then Lieutenant Dunstan Fairfax strolled into view.
 
Hands clasped behind him, the russet-haired
young officer assumed position well away from the beverage table to interrogate
the crowd with his stare.
 
By
convention, officers didn't mingle with their men during social occasions.
 
But one look at Fairfax, who displayed all
the sentiment of a suspicious swamp cat, convinced Sophie that the dance didn't
constitute a social occasion for him.

The mayor began
walking three lines of dancers through steps.
 
Privates escorted women out to the dance ground past her father, who was
conversing with MacVie.
 
Sophie had best
grab Will for the dance.

Within twenty
feet of the two men, she realized they were arguing and halted in time to hear
MacVie snarl to Will, "...just you and Jonah, eh?"
 
A warning look from Will silenced his
associate.
 
Both turned, MacVie sneering
at her, Will tense.

Awkwardness
squeaked her voice.
 
"The first
dance, Father."

MacVie gestured
beyond the straw sheaves and stalked off the dance ground.
 
Regret wove through Will's tension.
 
"I apologize.
 
Something's come up."
 
He spun on his heel and followed his cohort, leaving Sophie speechless.

She whirled
about in a huff.
 
By then, just about
everyone was lined up with a partner.
 
Fairfax caught her eye and started toward her, and she cast about in
panic.
 
Gods, no.
 
She didn't want to talk with him, and she
sure hoped he didn't want to dance with her.
 
Handsome as he was, the thought of him getting too close reminded her of
the way she'd felt when David dropped a live lizard inside her shift years ago
at the fair.

She signaled a
fifteen-year-old lad to join her in the line closest to the ale.
 
Seeing her partnered for the dance, Fairfax
retreated, and the fiddlers fired up an introductory four measures.
 
Ten minutes later, after Sophie and the boy
traveled up the line and then halfway back again, the fiddlers wound down the
tune.
 
People applauded, thanked
partners, and scrambled about for the next dance, merry and flirtatious.

Sophie spotted
David in conversation with Widow Reems.
 
David sure did like widows.
 
Will
had vanished.
 
So had Jonah Hale.
 
She noticed even more redcoats on the
grounds.
 
Lieutenant Fairfax was
questioning MacVie, who often whittled woodcut artwork for the newspaper.
 
Interrogation couldn't have happened to a
nicer person; in MacVie's world, women should be silent and servile — probably
a factor in his failure to find a wife.
 
Still, her uneasiness returned.
 
A charred woodcut had been left in the fireplace after last night's
print run.
 
With hindsight, she wished
she'd insisted that her servant clean the fireplace that afternoon.

Bearing the
smile of a diplomat, tall, blond Edward Hunt met her halfway to the
sidelines.
 
"Good evening.
 
You look lovely tonight."
 
He took her hand and escorted her off the
dance ground, the scarlet of his uniform like a beacon.
 
People gawked at them and whispered,
grinding grist in the gossip mill.

The mayor's
voice cleared the hubbub.
 
"The
second one is a minuet.
 
Grab your
partners, friends, and let's get started."

Edward clasped
her hands in his.
 
"I'd dearly love
dancing with you, but I fear my schedule doesn't permit it."

"No?
 
You've given your men leave to attend the
dance."

His
sapphire-hued gaze roved over her bosom before returning to her face.
 
"Good soldiers, each of them deserving
of a few hours leisure."

"And you
don't deserve such leisure?"
 
Fairfax drew up at attention behind the major, a hound awaiting the
command of his master in the shadows, and just close enough to hear their
conversation.

"Commanding
officers see little of leisure."
 
To her surprise, he lifted her hand to his lips.
 
"I shall return later, perhaps in time
for the final dance."
 
He released
her hand, bowed, and pivoted toward the lieutenant.
 
The two stepped over straw sheaves, headed out of the torchlight
toward the horses.
 
Still bemused by
Edward's kiss, Sophie remained where she stood, her ears trained on his query
to Fairfax: "MacVie?"

"Nothing.
 
Just like St. James."
 
No emotion colored Fairfax's voice.

"Carry
on.
 
With good fortune, we shall have
all we need by midnight."

"Sir."

Their voices
dwindled, and the sputter of a torch swallowed the rest of their
conversation.
 
She chanced a look at
them, but they'd already passed from silhouettes into secrecy.
 
We shall have all we need by midnight
.
 
Anxiety parched her mouth and fluttered her
stomach.
 
She paced the sidelines and
searched the crowd.
 
Where was Will St.
James?

Chapter Two

JACQUES TROTTED
OVER for the second dance, his expression stern.
 
"
Belle
Sophie, there you are, and finally free of the
company of pigs."
 
A beguiling smile
creased his face.
 
"Let us make
merry, eh?
 
I will show you how the
French dance a minuet."

Popular
"Jacques-Lore" held that decades earlier, before bandits butchered
his parents and a Creek family adopted his young sister, Madeleine, the
Frenchman had learned his dancing in Paris.
 
Jacques decorated Sophie's minuet with wild swings and twirls, leaving
her laughing and breathless.
 
Clearly,
some lore about him must be true.

For the third
tune, she found herself appointed David's partner by virtue of her ability to
pick up dance combinations quickly.
 
They demonstrated a dance called a "waltz" that he'd seen in
Williamsburg.
 
Couples joined in.
 
When she could spare a moment, she glanced
over the crowd.
 
Three rebels present at
the previous night's printing run had disappeared, and Will was still absent.

The waltz wound
down, and several fellows thumped David on the back with approval, their faces
flushed with dancing and ale.
 
David
nodded at them, then he led Sophie to the sidelines, where he pitched his voice
low.
 
"You really stir matters up
with Major Hunt."

"Too many
people have nothing better to do than mind my business.
 
Have you seen Father in the last quarter
hour?"

"Forget
about the old man.
 
You wouldn't be
vexed so by gossip were you on a course that carried your heart with it."

"Hearts."
 
His sober expression drew a chuckle from
her.
 
"Hearts have nothing to do
with this."

"To the
contrary, it's clear the major's quite taken with you."

"Oh,
poppycock."

"Join me
for a short walk."

Her hand on his
elbow, she strolled with him toward Zeb's barn, aware that Lieutenant Fairfax
watched them leave together.
 
They
passed a dozen men near the barn shrouded by night and the haze of tobacco
smoke.
 
One said, "Buford
surrendered.
 
That scum Banastre
Tarleton butchered men who lay down their arms."

"They were
asking for it up there in the Waxhaws," said a second man.