Shadowbrook (74 page)

“Pity. Bluffing is a skill you’ll be needing, Quentin. You’ve a few cards to play, but you must not show them too soon.”

That had been one of Bishkkek’s manhood lessons: … Your enemy must never see in your eyes the direction from which you plan to attack.
“I don’t play at cards, but I can bluff well enough, Uncle.”

Bede studied him for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yes. I expect you can.”

It was nearly five o’clock, most folks were indoors digesting their dinners and the streets were as empty as the streets of New York City ever were. Quent could hear the ring of his boots on the cobbles of the Broad Way. He was conscious of Pipps behind him. “He’ll follow on,” Bede had explained. “When you need me, go to James De Lancey’s window and signal. Pipps will come and let me know.” The servant did a fair job of following; not as good as even a very young brave, but fair. According to Bede, it was a skill the little man had learned in London where picking pockets had been his trade. “Very useful, is Pipps. There’s three years left on his indenture, but I’ve been paying him a wage this past twelvemonth. Keeping him happy so he’ll want to stay. And leave my purse in my pocket meanwhile.”

The early dark of oncoming winter was settling when Quent reached the governor’s mansion at the foot of the broad, tree-lined avenue. He walked up to the imposing front door and lifted the large brass knocker.

James De Lancey considered the papers spread on his desk. The majority bore official seals, a few—the most important—were headed with William Pitt’s personal crest and signed by his own hand. He considered as well the man who had brought him this welcome news, dad in a velvet coat and satin breeches. The outside matched the inside for once. “Excellent, Mr. Hale. You have brought me excellent news.”

Quent nodded. “Your servant, Governor.”

De Lancey stood up. “Well then, if there’s nothing else …”

“Sit down.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I said sit down, Governor. Our business is not yet finished.”

“London’s taught you impudence, Mr. Hale. I suggest you not take that tone in my—”

“If remaining as governor is what you wish, then I suggest you stop talking, take your seat, and pay attention.”

De Lancey’s face reddened. “How dare you—”

“Don’t talk, Governor. Just listen. I want the leases, both sets. The ones signed by my brother and yours as well as Levy and Alexander, and the ones making the Patent over to Hamish Stewart.”

The governor had regained his composure. “I rather thought that was what this was about. I regret I cannot comply, Mr. Hale. Those are legal documents left with me for safekeeping. They belong to others, not to you.”

“We had an agreement, you and I. Made in this very room—” Steady, Quent warned himself, steady. He heard Bishkek’s voice in his head:
In battle the fire-heat of anger is suitable for braves. For the chief there must be the snow-cold of wisdom.

“We had a discussion,” De Lancey said. “No promises were asked or given, and no oaths taken. Besides, I did not make any of these arrangements. I was simply a witness.”

“The Hale Patent belongs to me.”

“I remind you that you are not the eldest son.”

“I am my father’s son, sir, and a Hale. For now that’s quite enough.” Quent nodded toward a tall clock standing across from the governor’s elegant writing table. Painted cherubs cavorted in a painted garden at the clock’s base. Two more carved in brass rode the bob of the pendulum as it swung rhythmically from side to side. “You have thirty seconds, sir, to give me what I require. I shall start the count.”

“Thirty seconds?” the governor repeated incredulously.

The pendulum had completed three swings. “Twenty-seven now.”

“Or else what, Mr. Hale?”

“Or else a letter I wrote before coming here will be delivered to His Excellency
the Secretary of State, William Pitt. It’s on a Devrey ship that leaves with the evening tide—about half an hour from now—and will be in London in less than a month.”

“I might have known Bede Devrey was party to this outrage. And exactly what does your letter say, Mr. Hale?” It was said softly, with no hint of panic. De Lancey was neither a fool nor a coward.

“It says that I have proof you conspired with John Lydius to deliver faulty muskets to the Yorkers who joined His Majesty’s soldiers for Braddock’s campaign in the Ohio Country, as well as those provided for conscripts sent to defend Fort William Henry. That you were thus in some measure responsible for both massacres, and that the corruption of your stewardship in this province cries to heaven for vengeance. Something to that effect, at any rate. There are seven seconds remaining, Governor.”

“It’s not true, therefore you can have no such proof.”

“It is true. But even were it not, are you aware of the mood in London after so many defeats, Governor? Have you any notion of how desperately the government needs a goat that can be made to bear its sins?”

“Why should William Pitt believe a landless second son who has chosen to live as a woodsman and—”

“The Secretary and I spent many hours together, Governor. I have his complete confidence
precisely
because I am not a man of politics or property. Lacking ambition in your world, and that of Pitt, that gives me all the bona fides I require. And your writ runs from London, or it runs not at all. Now, sir. Your time is up.”

Quent rose and went to the window and pushed aside the damask draperies.

“What the devil are you doing?”

“Signaling to my uncle’s man. So he can go down to the docks and let the Devrey captain know the letter’s to be delivered.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Quent threw open the casement. “Pipps! Are you there? Come closer so His Excellency the Governor can get a look at you.”

“Right here I be, Mr. Hale, sir.”

“Excellent. Now, I wish you to—”

“Wait!” De Lancey’s command came out in a harsh whisper.

Quent turned to face him. The governor stood behind his desk, leaning over and supporting himself with the knuckles of both hands. “Wait,” he repeated. “What you’re doing makes no sense at all.”

“It makes perfect sense.” Quent glanced toward the clock with its unrelenting pendulum. “You’d best go now, Pipps. Tide’s getting ready to turn.”

“I said wait, damn you! There’s a good fifteen minutes before the tide turns.”

And you, sir, are mine. I’ve won, damn your lying hide. I’ve won! Excitement roiled Quent’s belly and made him want to roar with triumph. You have accepted my measure of the situation and it’s urgency, adopted it as your own. Meaning I have you as securely as if your still warm scalp was in my hand. He had never before experienced the thrill of a serious battle fought without a gun or a tomahawk or a knife, using not even his fists, only words and ideas, fashioning them into clever feints and parries that his enemy could not avoid. It was intoxicating. “Pipps, you’d best leave. Be sure and tell—”

“You won’t have the Patent, whatever I do.” De Lancey shot the words at him from across the room. “The holding will simply revert back to your brother John.”

“I’ll tell you one more time, De Lancey, I, too, am my father’s son. And my brother, whatever else he may be, is a Hale.”
John must die. For the Patent to survive, not only must I prevail here, now, in this room, John must die.
“I am asking you one last time for those deeds, sir.”

Pipps stood by the open window, listening to everything, grinning, his long, fanglike teeth on display. “Won’t take me more’n a few minutes to run down to the docks, Mr. Hale, sir. Be a bit o’ time left. Not much, mind, but a bit.”

De Lancey moved out from behind his desk. A picture of his country seat on Bouwery Lane a few miles north in the rural Manhattan fastness hung above a mahogany console set against the opposite wall. The governor swung the painting aside and revealed a locked cupboard which he opened. Inside was a box, also locked. The governor carried it to his desk.

“Still time,” Pipps said at the window. “But it’s getting short. I’ll be going in less’n a minute or so.”

“Shut up, you evil-looking blackguard,” De Lancey snapped. Then, to Quent: “I am not accustomed to being spied on by common riffraff peeking through my windows.”

“Back off, Pipps. But wait nearby.”

“Yes, sir. As you say, sir.”

De Lancey had the box unlocked and open. He removed two packets of documents and held them out. Quent took them, untying each bundle in turn and examining the papers quickly but thoroughly. The entire history of the double transaction was in his hands. If these papers were destroyed, it would be as if neither sorry bargain had been struck. “Tell me something, Governor, why did you agree to sell to Hamish Stewart? He can’t have paid you half what the place is worth.” Quent glanced again at the signatures on the bill of sale. A quartet of scoundrels as rotten as any he’d ever heard of. “Not an eighth of its worth,” he said, noting the price. “Why?”

“Why should I tell you anything?” De Lancey was very pale. Quent could smell the fury in him, and the self-disgust because he’d been forced to surrender.

“Indulge me, Governor,” he said softly. “Why the sale for too little to a man you could easily have crushed and discarded?”

De Lancey shrugged. There was no harm in telling now, and it was worth it to inflict a bit of pain on this arrogant red devil. “Stewart’s the one arranged to have Shadowbrook burned out by the Canadian savages. He thought no one knew, but of course I …” The governor made another of those dismissive gestures meant to indicate his all-seeing authority. “Granted, the rain saved the Patent from as much rain as was intended, but—”

Not just the rain, Quent thought, but the fact that Nicole and I were in Shoshanaya’s glade. She couldn’t have run off to a nunnery if I’d taken her in that cursed glen. Quent forced his thoughts away from Nicole. They were a distraction. Worse, they softened him.

“—the attack was the first wedge.” De Lancey enjoyed the look of anguish in Quentin Hale’s eyes. “Opened the wound, so to speak. Everything fell into place after that. Hamish Stewart was a useful tool. No reason not to let him think the Patent his. For a time, at least.”

“A device to get John out of the picture,” Quent said. “And leave you to manage things as you chose when you were ready.” The governor nodded. “Stewart’s untimely death must have caused you some disappointment,” Quent added.

“I am not surprised that you know he’s dead, Mr. Hale. Your mother came to visit her brother very recently, and your uncle can hardly have failed to inform you of all the Patent’s vital business.”

“I would never expect to surprise a man so well-informed, sir. At least not in such particulars.” Quent spoke as he carried the second set of deeds, the one awarding the Patent to the Scot, to the governor’s lively fire and tossed them into its heart. “I’m told Stewart’s buried on our land. Out behind the pigsty.”

“A detail I shall carry forever in my heart.”

Quent watched the last traces of the deed that had made the Patent over to Hamish Stewart char, curl, blacken, and finally disappear. He looked over at the other papers that had occupied this visit, the ones from London that still lay on the governor’s desk. “You understand what Pitt’s plans mean, do you not?”

“Oh yes. Massive, irresistible force. That’s what you advised, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. But the idea had already been in the Secretary’s mind. My suggestions were warmly received.”

“Then we shall get very rich here in New York. Very quickly. Properly fought wars do that for men of business, Mr. Hale. You are aware of that fact?”

“Entirely aware, Governor. Which is why I wish to make you a proposition.”

De Lancey was immediately wary. “What sort of proposition?”

“Twelve percent of the Patent’s profits for the next four years. You and Oliver to share equally.”

“I think,” the governor said slowly, “you must be mad.” He indicated the set of deeds Quent still held. “You have what you came for, Mr. Hale. Why should you—”

Because your reaction tells me what I most need to know, bloody James De Lancey. There are no other copies of these damnable papers, no further way you and your poxed brother can claim the Patent. “Because, sir”—nothing in Quent’s tone gave away his triumph—“I would far rather have you as an ally than an enemy. As you’ve said, trade will be brisk over the next few years. There are many ways the Acting Governor of New York can assist a provincial farmer who wishes to profit from that trade.”

De Lancey was silent for some time. Quent counted eight swings of the cherubs riding the pendulum. “Fourteen percent,” the governor said finally.

“Done.”

“I will draw up an agreement.” De Lancey flipped the tails of his coat as he sat down and reached for a quill.

“No need,” Quent said. “My uncle and I have done so already. Only the exact figure needs to be filled in.” He turned to the still-open window. “Pipps, you still there?”

“Right here, sir.”

“Please go at once to my uncle and ask that he might attend us here at His Excellency’s residence. And Pipps—”

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell him the figure is fourteen.”

De Lancey leaned back in his chair, the quill still in his hand. “You are a remarkable man, Mr. Hale. May I ask what was to be your final offer?”