The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles (61 page)

Contemptuously, Anne said, “On second thought, I doubt they’ll even bother with legal formalities. They’ll probably follow their more familiar course. Hire men from some gutter gang—to finish the work your brother started in England. Surely you won’t let yourself fall prey to such a transparent plot. You can’t be
that
brainless!”

Her voice rang loudly in the dim parlor. As the sound of it faded, the tap of the March rain on the shingled roof counterpointed the strained sibilance of her breathing.

Philip had trouble framing exactly how he wanted to approach a reply. He knew she was struggling against Alicia, as she’d vowed to do months ago. So she’d no doubt exaggerate the dangers inherent in answering Alicia’s plea for a meeting.

Yet, the dangers might be entirely real. He said carefully:

“I’ll admit everything you suggest is possible. Except for one fact. Alicia had no part in Roger’s schemes in England—”

“She certainly didn’t try to prevent them!”

“Yes, she did. In Tonbridge, it was only her warning that helped my mother and me escape in time. After that, I’m not even sure she knew what Roger was up to.”

“Who are you trying to convince, Philip? Me? Or yourself?”

“Dammit, Anne, listen to reason—!”

“About a woman who wants to take you away from me? No.”

“But you’re not looking at it clearly—!”

“Clearly!
That’s the pot calling the kettle black! Who said I must, anyway?”

“Anne, if Roger were recovering, I think he’d have already arranged for the kind of men you described to visit Launder Street. To find me or, failing that, force an admission from you about my whereabouts. He wouldn’t lure me all the way to Philadelphia.”

“You keep saying all that because it’s what you want to believe!” Anne cried, tears starting to show at the corners of her eyes.

“I’m trying to think it out!”

“Well, spare me! I’ve gone through quite enough for your sake these past few weeks. You seem prepared to forget that.”

He understood the tactic painfully well, a womanly tactic, springing from her anger. He didn’t blame her for the attack on his seeming ingratitude. But neither would he yield to it.

“You were also protecting Daisy and the sergeant. You helped hatch Lumden’s plan, remember?”

“The plan never included killing Amberly.”

“Or his arrival! Or the boy selling us out!” Philip countered, his voice louder.

“Don’t deny the killing wasn’t welcome revenge—”

“I will deny it!” He stepped close to her, reached for her arm. “He meant to hurt you. That was what went through my mind first and foremost—”

She flung his hand off, white with rage.

“You’re lying! Lying and evading the truth! You’ve become an expert at it! Does everything that’s happened to you in Boston mean nothing? All the work for Edes—was it a dumb-show, without any feeling, any conviction on your part?” Then she lost control completely. “And what passed between us—was that meaningless too?”

No!”

He clenched his fists, regretting the shout. He lowered his Voice, but it remained harsh. “But I told you clearly, Anne—I would not be tied—”

“Because you can’t decide what you are!” Anne mocked. “A free man, or the trained pet of that—that British whore. Why would you even
consider
going to her?”

“If I tried to explain, you wouldn’t—”

“A man of conviction would consign that damned letter to the fire instantly. But maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you really do want to be what she is. Maybe you aren’t strong enough to bury all those sick, false dreams your mother poured into you—”

Face darkening, he exploded,
“Don’t speak of my mother that way!”

“I will! Because she’s brought you to this—all her rantings about your rightful place as a little lord—”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Not till I’m finished. One thing’s certain. If you go to Philadelphia, you’ll no doubt save yourself from the battle that’s coming here. That may be the final proof of what you really are—a cowardly aristocrat like that woman’s husband. Well, go and be damned. I’m sorry I ever had hope for you—or let you touch me!”

“I believe, Anne, that decision was
yours.”
His enraged counterattack proved futile. She was trembling on the edge of hysteria. The last faint color had drained from her face. The half-circles of fatigue looked stark beneath her eyes. He wanted to strike her—

He jammed his fists to his sides, tried to speak calmly:

“Anne, you know I care for you—”

“Stop it! We’ve nothing further to talk about.”

“Yes, we do. There’s no other way to put the past to rest but to see Alicia one last time.”

“Another lie!” she cried, letting the tears come at last.

“No, believe me—
”

“You don’t belong in Massachusetts, you belong in some stinking, perfumed manor house across the Atlantic. You’re going exactly where you want to go—!”

In blind fury she shot a hand toward his throat. He jumped back, startled, as her fingers twisted under his collar, found the chain, tore it savagely.

He felt the chain part, cutting at the back of his neck. She lifted her prize up between them—the broken links, and the medal.

“But don’t travel with this, Philip. You’re not fit to wear it!”

She flung the medal. He heard it strike the wall, clink to the floor.

Anne looked at him hatefully. Her lips were tight together. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly, taut against her gown. He wanted to take her in his arms, try to make her understand that only by confronting the demon of his past could he reach a final point of decision—

He couldn’t put it adequately into words. He tried for a moment, but the result was only incoherent stammering. Anne turned from his outstretched hand.

At last he managed to say, “Just because I go doesn’t mean I won’t come back.”

Her fury changed to sorrowing pity. “And still one more lie. Maybe you can’t even recognize the way you lie to yourself any longer. If you go, Philip, I know I’ll never see you again.”

“By whose choice? Mine or yours?”

“Both!”

Covering her eyes, she ran. The bedroom door crashed shut.

A spatter of rain struck the window. He stalked to the door where she’d disappeared.

“Anne?”

Silence. He wrenched the knob.

Bolted.

Grim-faced, he surveyed the parlor. Saw Alicia’s letter on the threadbare carpet, brushed from the small table. He bent slowly, picked up the letter, slipped it into his pocket. He heard soft, anguished crying from the bedroom.

He was angry, ashamed and bitter over the scene just concluded. A weary acceptance dropped over him suddenly. He could be no more and no less than what he was: a man caught in the present but pulled relentlessly toward a past he thought had died.

He lifted Gil’s sword, the green glass bottle and his mother’s casket from the open trunk. He walked out leaving the liberty medal where it had fallen.

As Philip clattered down the stairs, Lawyer Ware glanced up from his conversation with a group of Concord men in Wright’s public room. Philip kept straight on toward the front door.

Ware rushed after the younger man.

“Kent, a word! Anne’s been sickly of late. I have a suspicion as to why she—”

But Philip had already stalked out into the rain. He swung up on the mare’s back, jerked her head toward the bridge and O’Brian’s farm. He heard Ware shout his name, this time angrily. But he did not turn to look.

O’Brian pressed Philip on the reason for the journey. He got noncommittal answers, except for Philip’s use of the term “urgent.” Finally, O’Brian agreed to let him have use of the mare. But when he heard Philip’s destination, he cautioned:

“Some of those Boston express riders claim they’ve covered the distance in eleven days round trip. Push Nell that hard and she’ll die on you. No more than thirty or thirty-five miles a day for her, mind. And rest her often. Or you can’t have her.”

At that rate, Philip reckoned the trip one way would take more than ten days. But traveling mounted, though slowly, was preferable to the impossible alternative—trying to make it on foot.

“All right, Mr. O’Brian, I promise.”

“This is truly a pressing matter?”

“Believe me, it is.”

“Then ask Arthur to pack saddlebags for you. Bread and some of the apples from the root cellar. We’ve an old skin you can fill with the apple wine—”

“Thank you.”

“Where will you stay at night?”

“Fields, barns—anywhere. I left what little money I’ve saved in the hands of Mr. Edes, the printer. God knows what’s become of it with things as they are.”

“Well,” the blue-eyed Irishman said, “I doubt you’ll be permitted to sleep in the streets of Philadelphia. I’ll advance you a little money—with the proviso you pay it back.”

“I appreciate it, sir. Of course I will.”

“You do intend to come back soon?”

Philip hesitated a moment. “That’s my present plan.” He felt guilty about the half-truth. He had no clear idea of the outcome of the journey.

The farmer scratched his nose, scrutinized Philip closely. “Something’s happened today—something very strange. I’ve never seen you so jumpy. Not even when you were dodging Arthur’s musket that first morning. I’d still like to know what sudden emergency hauls you off so far.”

The truth of it came automatically, and painfully:

“A personal matter I need to settle for good.”

“Colonel Barrett won’t be happy to lose even one musket man from the Concord company.”

“Tell him I have no choice.”

He left the farmhouse to search for Arthur in the barn, and say his farewells to Daisy and George Lumden. By early afternoon he was mounted and riding through the drizzle on the road back toward Lexington. Alicia’s letter was folded into the pocket of his surtout.

He was still too shaken to know whether what he was doing was right. But he had told O’Brian the complete truth at least once:

He had no choice.

That night, he tried to sleep in the lee of a stable belonging to some Cambridge farmer. He couldn’t doze off. He was bedeviled by a sense of his own inadequacy and weakness.

And by guilt.

He’d acted unfeelingly, brutally toward Anne Ware, who had given so much of herself with so little reservation. Excusing himself with the argument that he’d acted in the heat of the moment helped not one whit. And though Anne’s accusations still tormented him, he was no longer capable of feeling angry. She’d said what she had because she loved him.

Huddled in the dark with the mare, Nell, standing head down nearby, he fell prey to guilt from another source as well. His own emotions.

He couldn’t pretend that he felt no passion for Alicia Parkhurst. The passion had only been submerged out of necessity, and because of Anne’s presence. But whether his feelings for the earl’s daughter went beyond the physical, he was too weary and confused to decide. Perhaps, during the solitary trip to the city of the curious sect called Quakers, he could sort it all out.

The sorting, he decided, was long overdue.

And so, even though he was thoroughly wet and miserable, he began to be grateful for the enforced solitude of the post roads waiting to the south.

God forgive me
—
and you, Anne, if you can,
he thought as he sat with his head slumped against the planking of the Cambridge stable.
Excepting a few rare ones like old Adams, it seems the way a man must go is never clear
—

The weather improved slightly as he traveled into the Connecticut countryside, following a rutted highway that ran parallel to the river of the same name. Mindful of his pledge to O’Brian, he took care not to push the mare too hard. But though he rode relatively slowly, he ended each day the same way—aching and butt-sore.

In the town of Hartford, he managed to cadge food and a night’s rest in the public room of a tavern whose sign still bore a flattering image of round-faced King George. Anxious for news of events in Massachusetts, the landlord and his wife eagerly exchanged great chunks of hot bread and country butter and some deliciously roasted apples for what information Philip could provide. He was allowed to sleep on a bench by the hearth, warm for the first time since his departure.

But he was troubled by dreams in which Alicia’s face changed to Anne Ware’s, and back again—

By bridge he crossed to the northern end of the wooded island at whose southern extremity rose the thriving city of New York. He spent a morning in its streets, then used one of the shillings O’Brian had loaned him for ferry passage across the Hudson River to the Jersey shore. He pushed on southwestward to the town of Trenton, and paid again to be ferried over the Delaware.

On a late March day livened by a warm breeze hinting at the end of winter, the old mare set her hoofs on the soil of Pennsylvania. At Frankfort, five miles from Philadelphia, he realized with disappointment that the hoped-for solution to the riddle of his future hadn’t materialized during the long ride. His quandry was as deep as ever.

He was also uncomfortably conscious of mounting excitement at the prospect of seeing Alicia.

Of the two women, Anne was by far the more sensible and solid. And no less passionate and giving of herself than the English girl. She’d make any man a fine wife—

But she also represented uncertainty, the peril of this struggling country.

Everyplace he had stopped on the long road south, anxious men had questioned him about the chances of war.

And while he might agree with the principles for which patriots like Adams were struggling, he was still realistic enough to understand that the security—the personal safety—of all who espoused the colonial cause was vastly uncertain.

Alicia, in turn, stood for everything he had been taught to desire during all the years in Auvergne. He knew much of her world was cruelty and sham. It was a world devoted to the ruthless employment of wealth and position and power to acquire more of the same—at the expense of others. Yet even now, a part of him still craved admission to that world.