Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Page 50

  And felt—actually felt—a hand rest briefly on his shoulder, and knew who the third man was who walked with him.

  Taing, Da, he thought, and blinked, raising his face so the tears in his eyes might be thought due to the brightness of the growing light.

  I TIED CLARENCE to a picquet and made my way back into the tent, less troubled, though still keyed up. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen fast, and likely with little warning. Fergus and Germain had gone to find breakfast; I hoped they would show up before I had to leave—because when the time came, I would have to leave, no matter my reservations about abandoning a patient. Any patient.

  This particular patient was lying on his back, under the lantern, his working eye half closed, singing to himself in German. He desisted when I came in, and turned his head to see who it was, blinking at sight of my armament.

  “Are we expecting imminent invasion and capture?” he asked, sitting up.

  “Lie back down. No, this is Jamie being provident.” I touched one of the pistols gingerly. “I don’t know if they’re loaded yet.”

  “Certainly they are. The man is nothing if not thorough.” He eased himself back down, groaning slightly.

  “You think you know him awfully well, don’t you?” I asked, with an edge that rather surprised me.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered promptly. He smiled slightly at my expression. “Not nearly as well as you do in some matters, I’m sure—but perhaps better in others. We are both soldiers.” He tilted his head, indicating the military racket going on outside.

  “If you know him that well,” I said, nettled, “you should have known better than to say whatever you did say to him.”

  “Ah.” The smile disappeared and he looked up at the canvas overhead in contemplation. “I did. Know better. I just said it anyway.”

  “Ah,” I replied, and sat down next to the pile of bags and supplies that had made it thus far. Much of this would have to be abandoned. I could take a good deal in Clarence’s packs and saddlebags, but not everything. The army had been instructed to abandon almost everything they carried, save weapons and canteens, in the interests of speed.

  “Did he tell you what it was?” John asked after a moment, his voice elaborately casual.

  “What you said? No, but I could very likely guess.” I compressed my lips and didn’t look at him, instead lining up bottles on top of a chest. I’d got salt from the innkeeper—not without trouble—and had made up a couple of bottles of crude saline solution, and there was the alcohol … I picked up the candle and began to dribble wax carefully over the corks, lest they loosen and the bottles discharge their contents along the way.

  I didn’t want to pursue the history of John’s eye any further. Other considerations aside, any discussion might lead a little too close to Wentworth Prison for comfort. However close a friend Jamie might have considered John during the last few years, I was positive that he’d never told John about Black Jack Randall and what had happened at Wentworth. He’d told his brother-in-law Ian, many years ago—and therefore Jenny must know, too, though I doubted she’d ever spoken of it to Jamie—but no one else.

  John would likely assume that Jamie had hit him purely from revulsion at something overtly sexual from John—or from jealousy over me. It was perhaps not quite fair to let him think that—but fairness didn’t come into it.

  Still, I regretted the trouble between them. Beyond whatever personal awkwardness I found in the present situation, I knew how much John’s friendship had meant to Jamie—and vice versa. And while I was more than relieved not to be married to John anymore, I did care for him.

  And—while the noise and movement all around urged me to forget everything else but the urgency of departure—I couldn’t forget that this might be the last time I ever saw John, too.

  I sighed and began to wrap the waxed bottles in towels. I should add whatever I could find room for from my Kingsessing haul, but …

  “Don’t be troubled, my dear,” John said gently. “You know it will all come right—provided that we all live long enough.”

  I gave him a marked look and nodded toward the tent flap, where the clatter and clash of a military camp on the verge of movement was escalating.

  “Well, you’ll likely survive,” I said. “Unless you say the wrong thing to Jamie before we leave and he really does break your neck this time.”

  He glanced—as briefly as possible—toward the pale shaft of dust-filled light, and grimaced.

  “You’ve never had to do it, have you?” I said, seeing his face. “Sit and wait through a battle, wondering if someone you care for will come back.”

  “Not with regard to anyone other than myself, no,” he replied, but I could see that the remark had gone home. He hadn’t thought of that, and he didn’t like the thought one bit. Welcome to the club, I thought sardonically.

  “Do you think they’ll catch Clinton?” I asked, after a moment’s silence. He shrugged, almost irritably.

  “How should I know? I haven’t the slightest idea where Clinton’s troops are—I have no idea where Washington is, or where we are, for that matter.”

  “General Washington would be about thirty yards that way,” I said, picking up a basket of bandages and lint, and nodding toward where I’d last seen the commander. “And I would be surprised if General Clinton is very much farther off.”

  “Oh? And why is that, madam?” he asked, now half amused.

  “Because the order came down an hour ago to jettison all unnecessary supplies—though I don’t know if he actually said ‘jettison,’ come to think; that may not be a word in common use now. That’s why we were inspecting the men, when we found you—to leave back any who aren’t capable of a long forced march on short rations, should that be necessary. Apparently it is.

  “But you know what’s happening,” I added, watching him. “I can hear it. You surely can.” Anyone with ears or eyes could sense the nervous excitement in camp, see the hasty preparations being made, the small fights and outbreaks of cursing as men got in each other’s way, the bawling of officers, only a hair short of eye-rolling, horn-tossing violence, the braying of mules—I hoped no one would steal Clarence before I got back to him.

  John nodded, silent. I could see him turning the situation over in his mind, along with the obvious implications.

  “Yes, ‘jettison’ is certainly a word in common use,” he said absently. “Though you hear it more in terms of sea cargo. But—” He jerked a little, realizing the further implications of what I’d said, and stared hard at me with his uncovered eye.

  “Don’t do that,” I said mildly. “You’ll hurt the other one. And what I am or am not isn’t important just now, is it?”

  “No,” he muttered, and shut the eye for a moment, then opened it, staring upward at the canvas overhead. Dawn was coming; the yellowed canvas was beginning to glow, and the air around us was thick with dust and the odor of dried sweat.

  “I know very little that would be of interest to General Washington,” he said, “and I would be surprised if he didn’t know that little already. I am not a serving officer—or … well, I wasn’t, until my bloody brother decided to reenter me on the rolls of his bloody regiment. Do you know, he nearly got me hanged?”

  “No, but it sounds extremely like him,” I said, laughing despite my disquiet.

  “What do you—oh, God. You’ve met Hal?” He’d reared up on one elbow, blinking at me.

  “I have,” I assured him. “Lie down, and I’ll tell you.” Neither of us was going anywhere for a few minutes at least, and I was able to give him the entire story of my adventures with Hal in Philadelphia, while I wound up bandages, put my medical box in good order, and extracted what I thought the most important items from the supplies I’d brought. In an emergency, I might be reduced to what I could carry on my back at a dead run, and I made up a small rucksack with that contingency in mind, whilst regaling John with my opinions of his brother.

  “Jesus, if he thinks he�
�s a chance in hell of preventing Dorothea from marrying Dr. Hunter … I believe I’d pay good money to overhear the conversation when he meets Denzell,” he remarked. “Who would you bet on—given that Hal hasn’t got a regiment at his back to enforce his opinions?”

  “He likely has met him by now. As to odds—Denzell, three to two,” I said, after a moment’s consideration. “He’s got not only God but love—and Dorothea—on his side, and I do think that will outweigh even Hal’s brand of … of … autocratic conviction?”

  “I’d call it undiluted bastardliness, myself, but, then, I’m his brother. I’m allowed liberties.”

  The sound of voices speaking French announced the arrival of Fergus and Germain, and I stood up abruptly.

  “I may not—” I began, but he raised a hand, stopping me.

  “If not, then goodbye, my dear,” he said softly. “And good luck.”

  A SINGLE LOUSE

  IT WAS BARELY AN hour past dawn and it would doubtless be another beastly hot day, but for the moment the air was still fresh and both William and Goth were happy. He threaded his way through the boiling mass of men, horses, limbers, and the other impedimenta of war, quietly whistling “The King Enjoys His Own Again.”

  The baggage wagons were already being readied; a great dust cloud rose, roiling and shot through with gold from the rising sun, from the teamsters’ park near von Knyphausen’s division, encamped a quarter mile away, on the other side of Middletown. They’d be off directly, heading for Sandy Hook—and Jane, Fanny, Zeb, and Colenso with them, he sincerely hoped. A brief sensory recollection of the skin inside Jane’s thighs sparked through his mind and he stopped whistling for an instant, but then shook it out of his head. Work to be done!

  No one quite knew where the new British Legion was, though it was assumed to be somewhere in the vicinity of Clinton’s division, it being one of his personal regiments, raised only a month ago in New York. That might be chancy, but William was quite willing to wager that he could evade Sir Henry’s notice, under the conditions.

  “Like picking one louse out of a Frenchie’s wig,” he murmured, and patted Goth’s neck. The horse was fresh and frisky, couldn’t wait to reach the open road and break into a gallop. Clinton’s division was holding the rear guard at Middletown—enough distance to take the edge off Goth’s bounciness. First, though, they’d have to get through the spreading mass of camp followers, struggling out of sleep into a desperate haste. He kept Goth on a short rein, lest he trample a child—there were dozens of the little buggers, swarming over the ground like locusts.

  Glancing up from the ground, he caught sight of a familiar form, standing in line for bread, and his heart gave a small leap of pleasure. Anne Endicott, dressed for day but without her cap, dark hair in a thick plait down her back. The sight of it gave him a frisson of intimacy, and he barely stopped himself calling out to her. Time enough, after the fight.

  FOLIE À TROIS

  FERGUS HAD BROUGHT me a sausage roll and a cannikin of coffee—real coffee, for a wonder.

  “Milord will send for you shortly,” he said, handing these over.

  “Is he nearly ready?” The food was warm and fresh—and I knew it might be the last I got for some time—but I barely tasted it. “Have I time to dress Lord John’s eye again?” The pervading air of haste was clearly perceptible to me, and my skin had started twitching as though I were being attacked by ants.

  “I will go and see, milady. Germain?” Fergus tilted his head toward the tent flap, beckoning Germain to go with him.

  But Germain, out of what might have been either loyalty to John or fear of finding himself alone with Jamie—who had rather plainly meant what he said regarding the future of Germain’s arse—wanted to stay in the tent.

  “I’ll be fine,” John assured him. “Go with your father.” He was still pale and sweating, but his jaw and hands had relaxed; he wasn’t in severe pain.

  “Yes, he will be fine,” I said to Germain, but nodded to Fergus, who went out without further comment. “Fetch me some fresh lint, will you? Then you can come and help me while his lordship rests. As for you—” I turned to John. “You lie flat, keep your eye closed, and bloody stay out of trouble, if such a thing is possible.”

  He swiveled his good eye in my direction, wincing slightly as the movement pulled on the bad one.

  “Are you accusing me of causing the imbroglio that resulted in my injury, madam? Because I distinctly recall your playing some minor role in its origins.” He sounded rather cross.

  “I had nothing whatever to do with your ending up here,” I said firmly, though I could feel my cheeks flush. “Germain, have you found the lint?”

  “Will the honey not draw flies, Grannie?” Germain handed me the requested lint but stood by the cot, frowning down at its occupant. “Ken what they say, aye? Ye catch more flies wi’ honey than ye do wi’ vinegar. Ye couldna pour vinegar on him, I suppose?”

  “Hmmm.” He had a point. We were no great distance from the teamsters; I could hear mules snorting and braying, and newly wakened flies, still heavy with sleep, had been buzzing round my ears even as I unwrapped the old bandage. “Right. Not vinegar, but mint might help. Find the tin with the fleur-de-lis, then, and rub ointment on his lordship’s face and hands—don’t get it in his eyes. Then bring the small box—”

  “I am certainly capable of rubbing ointment on myself,” John interrupted, and extended a hand to Germain. “Here, give it to me.”

  “Lie still,” I said, rather cross myself. “As for what you’re capable of, I shudder to think.” I had set a small dish of honey to warm near the lantern; I filled my syringe and injected the honey around his bad eye, made a small pad of lint, thumbed it gently into his eye socket, and bound a clean length of gauze round his head to hold it in place, thinking as I did so.

  “Germain … go and fill the canteen, will you?” It was half full already, but he obligingly took it and went, leaving me alone with John.

  “Shall I leave Germain with you?” I asked, stuffing the last few items into my first-aid kit. “And Fergus?” I added hesitantly.

  “No,” he said, slightly startled. “What for?”

  “Well … protection. In case Monsieur Beauchamp should come back, I mean.” I didn’t trust Percy in the slightest. I was also dubious about putting Fergus in close proximity to him, but it had occurred to me that perhaps John might be some protection to him.

  “Ah.” He closed his good eye for a moment, then opened it again. “Now, that imbroglio is indeed of my own making,” he said ruefully. “But while Germain is admittedly a formidable presence, I shan’t need a bodyguard. I rather doubt that Percy intends either to assault or to kidnap me.”

  “Do you … care for him?” I asked curiously.

  “Is it your business if I do?” he replied evenly.

  I flushed more deeply, but took a few breaths before answering.

  “Yes,” I said at last. “Yes, I rather think it is. Whatever my role in the origins of this … this … er …”

  “Folie à trois?” he suggested, and I laughed. I’d told him what a folie à deux was, with reference to Mrs. Figg’s and the laundress’s shared obsession with starched drawers.

  “That will do. But, yes, it is my business—on Jamie’s behalf, if not yours.” But it was on his behalf, as well. The shock and rush of recent events had prevented my thinking through the situation, but I was quite sure that Jamie had. And now that I was thoroughly awake and undistracted by my own affairs, my thoughts were catching up with uncomfortable rapidity.

  “Do you recall a Captain André?” I asked abruptly. “John André. He was at the Mischianza.”

  “I may have lost a few things over the course of the last few days,” he said, with some acerbity, “but neither my memory nor my wits. Yet,” he added, in a marked manner. “Of course I know him. A very sociable and artistic young man; he was invited everywhere in Philadelphia. He’s on General Clinton’s staff.”

  “Did you know
that he’s also a spy?” My heart was thumping in my ears, and my stays felt suddenly too tight. Was I about to do something hideously irrevocable?

  He blinked, obviously startled.

  “No. Why on earth should you think that?” And, a half second later, “And why the devil would you tell me about it, if you do think so?”

  “Because,” I said, as evenly as I could, “he’ll be caught doing it, in another year or two. He’ll be found behind the American lines, in civilian clothes, with incriminating documents on his person. And the Americans will hang him.”

  The words hung in the air between us, visible as though they were written in black smoke. John opened his mouth, then shut it again, clearly nonplussed.

  I could hear all the sounds of the camp around us: talk, occasional shouting, and the sounds of horses and mules, the beat of a drum in the distance, summoning men to … what? Someone at close range practicing a fife, the shrill note breaking in the same place each time. The constant rumble and shriek of the grinding wheel, frenziedly sharpening metal for the last time. And the increasing buzz of flies.

  They were drifting into the tent in small clouds of carnivory; two of them landed on John’s forehead, to be irritably brushed away. The tin of bug repellent lay on the cot where Germain had put it down; I reached for it.

  “No,” he said, rather sharply, and took it from my hand. “I can—I—don’t touch me, if you please.” His hand trembled, and he had a moment’s difficulty in getting the lid off, but I didn’t help him. I’d gone cold to the fingertips, in spite of the stifling atmosphere in the tent.

  He’d surrendered to Jamie personally, given his parole. It would be Jamie who would eventually have to hand him over to General Washington. Would have to; too many people had seen the incident, knew where John was—and, by this time, what he was.

  John didn’t sit up, but managed to thumb a glob of the mentholated grease from the tin and rub it on his face and neck.

  “You didn’t have anything in your clothes,” I ventured, with a faint hope. “No incriminating documents, I mean.”

  “I had my warrant of commission in my pocket when the Rebel militia took me, outside Philadelphia,” he said, but spoke in an abstract tone, as though it didn’t really matter. He rubbed ointment briskly over his hands and wrists. “Not proof of spying in itself—but certainly proof that I was a British officer, out of uniform and arguably behind the American lines at the time. Don’t talk anymore, my dear; it’s very dangerous.”

  He snapped the lid onto the tin and held it out to me.

  “You’d better go,” he said, looking me in the eye and speaking in a low voice. “You must not be found alone with me.”

  “Grannie?” Germain pushed back the tent flap, red as a beet under his shaggy bangs. “Grannie! Come quick! Papa says Grand-père wants you!”

  He disappeared and I hastily snatched up my equipment, bedizening myself with bags and boxes. I made for the tent flap, but paused for an instant, turning to John.

  “I should have asked—does he care for you?” I said.

  He shut his good eye and his lips compressed for a moment.

  “I hope not,” he said.

  I HURRIED AFTER Germain with my medical satchel full of gurgling bottles slung over my shoulder, a small box of extra instruments and sutures under my arm, Clarence’s reins in hand, and a mind so agitated I could hardly see where I was going.

  I realized now that I hadn’t been telling John anything he didn’t know. Well … bar the account of Captain André’s future fate, and while that was chilling enough, it wasn’t of direct importance at the moment.

  He’d stopped me speaking, because he’d already known how much danger he stood in—and what the effects were likely to be on Jamie, and on me. “You must not be found alone with me.”

  Because I’d been at one point his wife, he meant. That’s what he’d been thinking but hadn’t wanted to tell me, until I forced the issue.

  If anything happened—well, be blunt about it: if he broke his parole and escaped—I’d very likely be suspected of having a hand in it, but the suspicion would be a great deal more pronounced if anyone could testify to having seen us in private conversation. And Jamie would be suspected of complicity at worst, or, at best, of having a wife who was disloyal both to him and to the cause of independence.… I could easily end up in a military prison. So might Jamie.

  But if John didn’t escape … or escaped and was recaptured …

  But the road lay before me, and Jamie was there on his horse, holding the reins of my mare. And it was Jamie with whom I’d cross the Rubicon today—not John.

  THE MARQUIS de La Fayette was waiting for them at the rendezvous, face flushed and eyes bright with anticipation. Jamie couldn’t help smiling at sight of the young Frenchman, got up regardless in a glorious uniform with red silk facings. He wasn’t inexperienced, though, despite his youth and his very obvious Frenchness. He’d told Jamie about the battle at Brandywine Creek a year before, where he’d been wounded in the leg, and how Washington had insisted that he lie beside him and wrapped him in his own cloak. Gilbert idolized Washington, who had no sons of his own, and who clearly felt a deep affection for the wee marquis.

  Jamie glanced at Claire, to see if she was appreciating La Fayette’s stylish toilette, but her gaze was fixed—with a small frown—on a group of men in the far distance, beyond the Continental regulars drawn up in orderly formations. She wasn’t wearing her spectacles; he could see easily at a distance and half-stood in his stirrups to look.

  “General Washington and Charles Lee,” he told her, sitting back in the saddle. La Fayette, spotting them, as well, swung himself into his own saddle and rode toward the senior officers. “I suppose I’d best go join them. D’ye see Denzell Hunter yet?” He had it in mind to confide Claire to Hunter’s care; he didn’t mean her to be wandering the battlefield—if there was one—on her own, no matter how helpful she might be there, and was wary of leaving her alone.