The Tory Widow (52 page)

Titus laid Patsy out on the grass. Sally used the hem of her petticoat to rub the paint and blood from her friend's pretty face. Anne straightened Patsy's clothing, and combed fingers through her soft dark curls. Jack folded her small hands across her breast, and kissed her cold cheek.

“Be at peace, dear Patsy.”

Shouts, and the unmistakable clank and creak of soldiers at the quickstep caught their ears, and Tully urged, “With speed, mates . . . across Broad Way—
now
.”

Sally and Titus followed Tully to the churchyard fence that bordered Broad Way.

“Wait . . .” Anne fell to her knees and began picking and plucking at the dead leaves and twigs entangled in the grass on Jemmy's grave.

“Annie . . .” Jack took her by the shoulders. “We have to go . . .”

Anne stopped her frantic tending, and leaned against the stone marker, tipping her head to rest on the curve of the granite for a moment. She closed her eyes, and heaved a sigh. Rising to her feet, she took Jack by the hand and they ran to catch up with the others. Anne glanced back as they passed through the churchyard gate. “You think we'll ever come back?”

“Oh, we'll be back.” Jack gave her hand a squeeze. “I promise.”

 

 

KEEPING to shadows and dark doorways, Jack traversed the familiar backstreets and alleyways, leading the group to the Fishmarket, evading the Watch, and the companies of Redcoats the provost had patrolling the streets. They scurried down to the very end of the dock and found the Quaker minding the pettiauger with a pistol in his hand, and Bandit asleep in a tight curl on his lap.

“Wonderful to see you all safe, Jack.” The Quaker welcomed each of them, handing off his weapon to Titus. Bandit leapt into Sally's arms, panting and licking the paint from her face.

“Patsy's fallen,” Jack said. “The provost shot her dead.”

“Not Patsy!” The Quaker gave a sad shake of his head. “Oh, to lose a heart so young and brave . . .”

“We had to leave her in Trinity Churchyard,” Titus added. “Tell the Stitch we depend on him to see to her burial.”

“I will.”

Before boarding the pettiauger, everyone took turns bidding a quick farewell to the Quaker and Bandit, who was being left in the Quaker's care. The women each gave the man a hug and a kiss on his pate.

The Quaker gathered Bandit into his arms, and began making his way up the dock, when Jack called soft, “For the record, Quaker—what
is
your name?”

“Elbert—” he said with a little waggle of his fingers. “Elbert Hadley.”

“Farewell, Elbert.”

“Aye,” Sally said, “he's got the look of an Elbert, na?”

Anne and Sally climbed into the boat, and sat together on the cross-thwart nearest the bow. Jack set the oars into the locks. Titus rearranged the bags and parcels they had tossed into the boat with such haste earlier.

“How's your arse, Tully?”

“Don't worry about my arse, Titus. My arse'll be fine once one of you digs the lead out of it.” Tully loosed the stern line and took the rudder.

Jack shot Titus an elbow as they took the oars. “Now there's something to look forward to.”

Tully rasped, “Sally, loose that bowline.”

Anne grabbed Sally by the arm. “Did you pack my brooch?”

“Yer brooch?” Sally's eyes grew wide. “I didna! I meant to, but something . . .”

Anne tugged on the bowline and pulled herself out of the boat. “I
have
to go back for my brooch. It's all I have of Jemmy—I'll be quick . . . I promise.”

Jack scrambled out after her. “I'm coming with you.”

“Annie! Keys!” Sally fished through a bag at her feet, and tossed up a ring of keys.

“Wait!” Titus dove under his seat. “Redcoats are on the prowl—arm yourselves.” He handed up a saber in scabbard to Jack. Anne took the pistol Titus pulled from his sash and dropped it into her pocket. The two linked hands, and ran the short distance to the Crown and Quill.

When Anne put the key in the lock and turned the latch, she was relieved to find the inside bolts had not been thrown, and Jack would not be forced to scale the wall. Pointing to the burning candle Sally set out for the Redcoat officers, she whispered, “They are still out . . .”

“But might be back at any time.” Jack slid the three bolts home. “I'll stand watch. If they come, we'll go out the back way. Hurry now and get the brooch.”

Anne hiked her skirts. Taking the stairs two at a time, she ran down the hallway and pounded up the garret stair.

She had left her room in a complete uproar—but the laquered box was on the night table, where she always kept it. Anne pinned the brooch to the inside of her stays, and pressed both hands over it. Having it next to her heart brought her great ease.
Everything is going to be alright.

Anne ran down the garret stairs and skipped down the second-floor hallway, calling out a merry, “I have it!” when the door to her old bedchamber swung open and she was grabbed hard by the arm.

Edward Blankenship shouted, “
Thief!
” and put his sword to her throat.

“Stop! Edward! I'm no thief—it's me—it's Anne,” she blubbered.

The captain spun her around, lowering his blade. “Anne?”

He must have been readying for bed. In stockinged feet, his shirttails were half-hanging and his hair was unbound. He had a pistol stuffed into the waistband of his breeches. She could smell rum on his breath.

“I thought I heard a noise . . .” she blathered. “I didn't hear you come in. Where are the others—Wemyss and Stuart?”

Sword in fist, Blankenship jerked her toward the doorway of his room where the candle cast a light on her disheveled costume and painted face. “What are you up to? Who were you calling to?”

“She was calling to me.”

Blankenship jerked around, his boyish brow beetled, like a school-boy at his ciphers.

Jack stood at the top of the landing. The week's worth of stubble he wore enabled the captain to put a name to a familiar face.

“Stapleton?”

“You have a good memory for faces.”

“I have a good memory for rebel spies.”

Jack moved forward. His filthy shirt was besmeared in blood, and dark welts were raised where the noose had burned his neck and fingers. He unsheathed his sword and tossed the scabbard aside. “Let her loose. She's going with me.”

“Then she's a spy as well . . .” Blankenship pulled Anne close.

“Bravo, Captain.” Jack laughed, inching forward. “You're a quick study, aren't you? She's the rebel spy you have brought into General Howe's home—she's the rebel spy who's passed along every secret you've been gulled into uttering.”

Like a terrier with its quarry, Blankenship's grip tightened and he gave Anne a rough shake. “Not true . . .”

“She's been playing you for a fool all along—‘
Soon, Edward
,' she says, right? Promising to come to your bed? Well, friend,
I
know the pleasure of her bed—every night—right over your very head.” Jack pointed up to the ceiling.

Blankenship growled. Letting go of Anne, he drew his pistol and fired. The hurried shot went wide, splintering the doorframe. Anne ran to Jack and they flew down the stairs.

The captain barreled after them, meeting Jack at the bottom of the stairs in a clash of honed steel, while Anne fumbled with the bolts. The dragoon drove Jack away from the door.

A journeyman was certainly no match for a cavalryman, and Jack stumbled around tables and chairs, awkward in parrying the relentless onslaught of expert blows Blankenship rained down upon him.

“Rebel scum!” the dragoon growled, slicing his blade through to the bone on Jack 's right forearm.

“Stop, Edward, or I will shoot!” Anne leveled her pistol, and brooked the shooting stance. Steadying her wrist like Titus had taught her, she held her breath and sought a clear target.

His right arm hanging useless, his left weakening, Jack flailed his saber, and was beaten back into the corner.

In total command, Blankenship smiled. “You, I will kill . . . a gut wound, I think.” The tip of his angry blade lashed out and sliced Jack across the cheek. “And after my men have had their fill of her, your whore will hang for a spy.”

“Anne!” Jack shouted. “
Shoot him!
”

Blankenship glanced back at Anne. Jack lunged forward with a backhanded swipe of his saber, and cleaved the captain across the face at the exact same instant Anne pulled the trigger, felling him with a ball to his head.

As suddenly as it all began, it was over. With a measure of disbelief, Anne and Jack gulped air, tasting the sulfur floating on the smoke. Anne whimpered, “I told him I would shoot.”

An alarm was shouted. A dog barked in the distance. The saber slipped from Jack's grip and fell clanging to the floorboards. He skirted around the dragoon lying facedown in an ever-widening pool of deep red blood. Stumbling through a tangle of chairs, he reached out and took Anne by the hand.

“Let's go.”

Anne slipped the pistol in her pocket, and together they ran out into the night.

PART THREE

Epilogue

 

A
NNE'S father sat in a chair at the opposite end of the table, positioned to catch the lone shaft of fading light coming in through a west-facing window. With one leg crossed over the other, he held a copy of the
Peekskill Journal
at arm's length, reading the latest edition issued by his press, lips pursed in disappointment. “This composition looks very ragged, daughter—”

“I did the best I could with the poor type you keep.” Anne looked up from the potato she was peeling. “It is a pity you don't have another daughter to exchange for a new set, isn't it?”

The rusty cowbell rigged over the shop door clanked twice as the door swept open. Anne leaned back in her seat to peer through the doorway between the living quarters and the small pressroom and smiled. “It's Jack!”

The bell brayed again as the door closed behind him, and Jack skirted around the ramshackle press to enter the room that served as kitchen and parlor in the Peabody home. Pale and thinner from a prolonged bout with fever, he carried his right arm in a sling. Anne cleared a space for him to sit at the end of the long table where she and Sally sat preparing root vegtables for the stew pot.

“Good day to you, Mr. Peabody,” Jack said with a nod, taking a seat beside Anne.

Without bothering to glance up, Amos Peabody emitted a curt
hmmph
. Gathering his reading material, he rose from his seat and headed for the stairs. “Anne,” he ordered over his shoulder, “have that girl bring my supper up to my bedchamber.”

“ ‘That girl' is Sally, and David will marry her no matter how you grumble or pretend not to remember her name,” Anne shouted after her father, the timbre of her voice rising with his every angry stamp up the stairs. “Be assured, we here are more than happy to be relieved of your rude and unpleasant company, you miserable, old ba—” Anne stopped herself, heaved a sigh, and with a shrug to Jack and Sally she said, “My mother was the one who knew how to temper his willfulness. I should try to have more patience with him.”

Sally stirred a bowlful of cut carrots into the pot of stew simmering over the fire. “Stubborn and proud, yer da is—and from what I ken, th' acorns dinna fall far from the tree.”

Jack reached out and pressed the back of his hand to Anne's flushed cheek. “He'll come around. When me and Titus brought David home, your father was nothing but friendly and kind to us...”

“That was afore he knew ye were fixin' t' wed his daughter and rob him of his dower share,” Sally said, with a shake of her spoon. “Yer a thief and a rogue, Jack Hampton, and I am a grasping Jezebel.”

Anne laughed and leaned her head against Jack's shoulder. “But for you and Sally, I would have gone mad after one week under this roof.”

“As soon as Hercules sends the money, we can marry and find a roof of our own.”

“A home of our own and a printshop . . .” Anne added. She and Jack exchanged a soft kiss.

“And you won't have to put up with your father except for when he comes to visit his grandchildren.” Jack winked.

Sally heaved a sigh. “Yer so lucky, Annie, t' have yer man at hand, safe and sound.”

“He's not yet sound.” Anne gave Jack a little nudge. “Move into the good light, and let me see to your arm.”

“I'm all healed.” Jack slipped his arm from the sling and rolled his sleeve up. “Four days since I last fevered—I'm sure the wound's no longer festering.”

Anne unwound the bandage protecting the deep gash on his right forearm while eyeing the lighter wound on his face. The facial cut healed clean, and she knew Jack was pleased with the thin pink scar curved from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. “A swordmark lends an air of menace to a man, don't you think?” he had said, looking into a mirror the other day.

But she noticed he had taken to always wearing a linen neckstock to hide the ugly story told by the abrasions around his neck. Anne doubted the rope scars would ever fade completely away. “Ooohhh . . .” She peeled away the pad of cotton lint. “Much better today, don't you think, Sally?”

Sally leaned in for a good look. “Aye—much calmed—tha' new ointment from the apothecary is doin' ye some good, na?”