The Tory Widow (43 page)

Jack clenched his fist around the broken bit of cast iron, and watched the widow set the stubby little candle on her bed table. Kicking off slippers, she removed the pins fastening her gown, dropping them with a
ting
,
ting
,
ting
into the dish. She peeled free from the heavy silk dress and multiple petticoats, draping the garments over the open chest.

She struggled like a bird trapped in a cage, trying to untie the complicated strings securing the panniers that supplied her with fashionable wide hips. At last she took a pair of shears to the strings, and let the entire ridiculous contrivance drop to the ground, stepping out of the whalebone structure dressed in naught but a thin shift and tight stays.

Illuminated by the dancing flame of the diminishing candle, the widow raised the hem of her lace-edged shift, and braced one foot to the mattress, exposing a shapely leg encased in white silk. She loosed the garter bow tied above her knee, and rolled her stocking down to her toes.

On his haunches, in the shadows, Jack's heart beat a fiercesome call to action, and the fine line drawn between pride and desire blurred as the second garter was loosed and the corresponding stocking slipped off and tossed over the bedpost. Jack considered the pleasure that could be had by bending the widow over the bedstead, his knife at her throat . . .
More pleasure than she deserves,
he decided.

Anne freed her hair from pins, scrubbing her scalp, combing fingers through the wavy length glinting copper as she moved closer to the light. Starting at the bottom, she undid the front hooks on her stays—skin glowing golden in the candlelight—breasts quaking with every pop of every hook.

Released from her stays, Anne heaved a breathy sigh. And with what seemed like malicious intent to torture, she turned, stretching her arms over her head, arching her back and striking a pose where Jack could clearly discern through the thin gauze of her shift a pair of choice nipples and an enticing dark patch between her legs. He bit down on his fist.

A cool gust of wind blew in off the bay, nearly dousing the candle and drawing the shutters closed with a slam. Bandit began to bark and Sally was at the door in no time, calling, “Alright, Annie?”

“Just the wind, Sal—I'm fine, go back to sleep.” Anne squeezed between the desk and the chair to reopen the shutters, and tripped over the coiled rope. She brought the grappling hook up—examining it—trailing fingertips along the windowsill, she began to call out, “Sal . . .”

Jack rushed up from behind. Clamping one hand over her mouth, he locked an arm around her waist, pinning Anne's arms tight to her side. Twisting her head, eyes wide in recognition, she struggled to break free from his grip, thrashing, kicking, her screams choked and muffled. They bumped into the chest and the lid slammed closed.

“Stop it!” Jack gave her a hard shake, as if she were a rag doll. Anne ceased her futile thrashing, her breasts rising and falling with deep indrawn breaths. “I know you wish me ill,” Jack rasped into her ear, “but I can't imagine you'd wish anyone into a British prison. Let's come to a reckoning—promise you won't scream, and I'll let you go.”

Anne nodded once.

Jack let her go and she spun around. Like a wild woman from a Norse saga, she bore a mean glint in her eye and an angry set to her shoulders. Her hair was a tangle about her head, and she spoke with teeth clenched. “What did you come here for?”

“For the same favors you so freely dispense among the British cavalry,” he growled. Pulling her into his arms, he groped at her breasts and tugged at her shift, burying his face in her neck.

Anne Merrick buried her knee in his bollocks.

Jack's world turned red for an instant. Cramped in a half crouch as a white-hot corkscrew twisted up through his stones into his gut, he blinked back tears. Concentrating on catching a breath, he heard the hammer cock back on a pistol.

“Get out!”

Jack looked up, his one eye squinched like Tully's. Anne Merrick stood with a dueling pistol leveled at his head.

“Get out
now
,” she ordered.

“
Bitch
. . .” he spat, hobbling to the window. “Tory
cunt
. . .” He kicked at the chair, sending it in a scrape along the floorboards to bang into the wall. Jack managed to grasp the grapple and secure it to the sill. The hideous pain radiating in waves through his abdomen subsiding a bit, he tried to straighten to a full stand.

“Out the window now, or I will shoot.”

“Shoot, then, for I am moving with as much speed as I can muster.” Jack leaned against the sill, and drew in a deep breath. “I promise you, madam, your desire to have me gone is eclipsed by my desire to be away from you.”

“You promise . . .” Anne sneered, swiping away tears with the back of her hand. “Like you promised to come back?”

“I'm here, aren't I?”

“Whoremongering reprobate!” The muzzle of the pistol began to waver, and she brought her free hand to steady her weakening wrist. “Sally saw you with Patsy at the brothel on Murray Street a sennight ago . . .”

“So what? You fuck Redcoats,” Jack countered.

There was a knock at the door, and Edward Blankenship called out, “Are you alright, Anne? Is something amiss?”

Anne moved in on Jack, gesturing with the tip of her pistol for him to exit. She sang out in a bright voice, “I'm fine—don't worry—I'll see you in the morning, Edward.”

After a pause, Blankenship answered, “All right, then . . . good night.”

“Don't worry, Edward. I'll suck your cock in the morning, Edward,”
Jack whispered, mimicking her tone. He tried to hoist a leg over the sill, and yet unequal to the task, lost his balance and stumbled forward, the spool of ribbon inside his shirt tumbling out onto the stack of paper-wrapped packages beside the desk.

“Get out!” Anne put the barrel end of her pistol to his temple.

Unmoved, Jack stared at the reams of paper draped in a length of grosgrain ribbon. Images and words flashed through his mind—Anne's garter, tied in a pretty bow above her knee—the ribbon Titus untied in the moonlight at the apple orchard.
The widow has become quite the Tory gadfly these days . . . Correspondence in the morning . . .

Jack jerked to a stand. “Are you working for the Stitch?”

“Get out, Jack.” Anne extended her elbows.

Snatching the half-cocked pistol by the barrel, Jack tossed it onto the chair, and grabbed Anne by the arms. “
Answer me, goddammit!
Do you gather intelligence for the Stitch?”

“You were the one who sent me to him,” she lashed back.

Jack released her. He took a few steps back, bumping his head on the pitched ceiling. “He lied to me . . .”

“Who lied?”

“Hercules.” Jack rubbed his sore head. “The day we came for you—me and Titus—we saw you kissing the dragoon out on the lane . . .”

“No . . .” Anne shook her head. “I know the day you're talking about and it wasn't like that.
He
kissed
me
. . .”

“Sent me mad regardless—the sight of it.” Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Titus literally dragged me away to the Thimble and Shears—and Hercules dosed me with whiskey and led me to believe the worst . . . the absolute
worst.
”

Anne stood rubbing her upper arms where he had gripped her so tight. “And you believed the worst?”

“I did . . .” Jack nodded. “And was made miserable for it. Titus didn't believe. Titus thought you might be courting the Redcoats for good purpose, but that bastard Irishman . . .
Goddamn him
!”

“I suppose Mr. Mulligan was protecting me . . .”

“A load of shite, that is.” Jack's forehead knotted. “Lying to me has nothing to do with protecting your well-being, and everything to do with keeping us both in New York. It's all so clear to me now—you are his connection to Howe—and he needs me and Titus for his counterfeiting operation. These purposes would not be served if I had taken you away.” Jack dropped to sit on the bed. “I knew Hercules for a fanatic, but I never figured him as one who'd misuse his friends so cruelly.”

“Misused to further the cause of liberty, Jack. Don't judge the tailor too harshly, his motives being unselfish and true . . .” Anne took a step forward, hands on hips, chin cocked. “But what about you and Patsy Quinn? Sally saw you happy with her . . .”

“Patsy's working with us on the counterfeiting scheme. We all met once, on the brothel rooftop. I suspect that's what Sally saw, though I was nowhere near being happy—I haven't had a moment's happiness since seeing you with
him
”—Jack pointed ruefully to the floorboards—“the dragoon you keep beneath your bed.”

The candle had dwindled to a snippet of black wick sputtering in a scant puddle of molten wax in the well of the candledish. Anne stood with her back to the open windows—her shift as sheer as a dragonfly's wing—and Jack ached to caress the curves of her silhouette beckoning in the flickering light. Swinging her waist-length hair over her shoulder, Anne came to stand before him, her whisper harsh. “If you believed me a whore for Redcoats, why did you bother coming here?”

“I'm here because you've caused me to lose what little wits I possess . . .” Jack looked up into her eyes. “I'm here because I'm desperate in love with you.” He slid hands up beneath the hem of her shift, running his fingers along the length of her legs, her skin soft, smooth and warm, smelling of lavender. Hands at her waist, he pulled Anne close, and they rolled back to fall onto the mattress. Limbs and bodies entwined in embrace, hungry mouths met to finish the kiss begun months before.

She moaned in his ear. “I want you moving inside me . . .”

Jack rose up on his knees. He tugged his shirt off, his voice low. “I'm not one for reciting pretty poetry, Annie . . .” A wicked smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he unbuttoned the straining buttons on his breeches. “But I promise I will carry you away—I will move you to ecstasy.”

The candle sputtered out, and breathless, Anne reached for him in the dark, whispering, “I'm going to hold you to that promise . . .”

Long past the midnight hour, but William Cunningham diligently scrived the meticulous record of the night's work by the light of the bayberry candle he'd lit against the stench of the Provost Prison. “Enter,” he called in answer to the knock on his door, continuing to scratch away with his goose-feather quill in the orderly book, not deigning to look up from his task as Quartermaster Lemuel Floyd swaggered in.

Floyd was a handsome man—the youngest son of a prosperous draper in Ipswich. He'd enlisted in the British Army on a drunken spree, and soon found he was not suited to the lifelong discipline and rigor required of an infantryman. Good with figures, knowledgeable in trade, Lemuel proved himself better able to the tasks of negotiation and purchase than to the tasks of loading and firing a musket. With an ambition fueled by the need to make army life bearable, Floyd gained the most senior noncommissioned rank possible, and as quartermaster he kept himself plump in the pocket selling the goods he commandeered for military use. And for a percentage, the shrewd quartermaster acted as Cunningham's intermediary, selling the stores appropriated from prison rations to the market at large.

Floyd dropped down in the chair, pushed his tricorn back on his head, heaved a sigh and reached for the bottle of rum the provost kept on his desk. “I am spent!”

Cunningham snatched the bottle from his grasp. “You are late. Supper was at dusk, and the hangings were over an hour ago.”

“Sorry to have missed your neck-stretching party, Billy, but I was busy taking care of important business.”

“Hmph! Business.” Cunningham cast a gimlet eye on the white facings on Floyd's red jacket, smeared carmine with rouge. Dipping his pen in the inkwell, the provost resumed his book work. “Moderation, lad. Your weakness for quim will be the end of you. Whores will steal your health and pence. Mark my words, if you don't temper your habits, you'll wind up a pauper, pissing pins and needles.”

“Mounting the likes of Patsy Quinn is well worth chancing a dose of the French pox.” The quartermaster winked, stretching out his legs. “By the way she was bucking and moaning, I'd say she more than enjoyed the ride.”

“Don't be gulled. That clever cunt has had more pricks than a secondhand dartboard—and yours the least of them all, no doubt.” The provost set down his pen. “Have you come to an arrangement with the bawd?”

Floyd reached once again for the rum, and this time Cunningham did not come between the quartermaster and the bottle. “She says her customer is ready to accept shipment Friday next. I've only to name the place of delivery. I'm thinking the shipyards . . .”

“What sort of goods is this customer looking to buy?”

“Goods the rebel army lacks most—wool blankets and canvas yardage for tents. The whore guarantees her man will remit payment in currency.”

Cunningham opened his desk drawer and produced another bottle. “Colonials . . .” Leaning back in his chair, he fiddled with the bumpy scar above his ear. “Fucking greedy buggers, these so-called Loyalists. First they gouge the King's Army for every barrel of flour and meat, then they turncoat and use those profits to line their pockets even further, trading with the enemy.”