"I don't care! I don't care!" she repeated. "I never wanted anyone dead before, but I want him dead and I want it to be painful."
When they reached the Blue Boar he took her to a table in the rear and ordered a bottle of claret. He offered his hands across the table. "Are you sure you're all right?"
She nodded. "How can your army allow men like that to go free?" she questioned bitterly. "How can you stand to be a part of this?"
Sterling crossed his arms over his chest, choosing his words carefully. "Not every loyal man is a murderer. I've killed no one."
She looked up at him. "Never?"
"No. " Liar! Liar! images of the Hessian soldiers that fell at the Battle of Long Island cried out in his head.
"Oh, Grayson. " She looked away, staring out into the busy public room. "I used to be proud that I was born when I was. I was proud that I was part of this revolution, but now . . ." Her voice faded into nothingness.
Sterling's heart wept for her as he took her cold hand and pressed it to his lips. "Have a sip, it will make you feel better."
He pushed the claret into her hand, and she accepted it. The sharp bite of the alcohol tasted good. It jolted her back to the reality of her world. She finished her claret and then stood. "I'm ready. Let's go."
"Home?" Sterling pitched a penny onto the table.
"Certainly not. I've already been seen with you by half of Philadelphia. We might as well go on to the barracks."
"You're sure?"
She pushed her basket onto her elbow and linked her arm through his. "I'm sure. I've business to attend to. " She patted the underside of her basket as they stepped out onto the street.
Chapter Eighteen
Reagan walked down Spruce and onto Fourth Street, a merry skip in her step. The March breezes had turned warm with the coming of April, and for once all seemed to be going well in Reagan's life. At least as well as could be expected, considering her circumstances.
In the last few weeks, she and Grayson had shared a warmth she had never known could exist between a man and a woman. It wasn't just the passionate nights that brought a smile to her lips, but the days as well. When Grayson wasn't on duty, he spent most of his time with her. They played the spinet, they laughed and talked while she baked her gingerbread, they rolled in the hay in the barn and laughed like schoolchildren.
The longer Reagan knew Grayson, the odder he seemed to her. It was as if there were two men in his one lean, muscular body. The man in the uniform who reported to Major Burke seemed without purpose. He was late to guard duty and lax with his paperwork. He seemed to take nothing seriously but his biweekly card games at the Blue Boar and his never-ending supply of porter and claret.
Yet, when Grayson returned home to the privacy of the Llewellyn home on Spruce Street, he transformed. Nowadays he was taking to wearing civilian clothes as he sat for long hours in the parlor, reading aloud while Reagan mended. Perhaps it was for her that he had laid aside his red coat in the evenings; he knew how torn she felt inside. But Reagan wasn't sure. It was as if when he shed the coat, he shed the rogue, revealing beneath a man of respectability . . . the man she loved.
An old friend of the family passed Reagan on the street, bringing her out of her reverie. "Afternoon, Mistress Morgan. " She bobbed her head, conscious of the new flat straw hat covered with cream silk and gauze Grayson had produced as a gift.
Mistress Morgan made ceremony of lifting her pointed chin in the air and hurrying past without so much as a word.
Reagan ignored her, going on her way. It was a strange situation she was in these days. With Grayson's involuntary aid she was managing to get more pamphlets out than she had when her father was living. She was doing more for the cause than she had ever hoped; her leaflets were reaching beyond the city as far as New York and Richmond. Some coin was even filtering back to aid in the cost of printing. But as her essays became more popular, her friends in the city began to shun her, not knowing it was she who produced the lively, intuitive political pamphlets. All her patriot neighbors saw was her being escorted by Captain Thayer. She began appearing at small informal parties given by the British officers. In her friends' eyes she had become another bloody Tory.
The thought stung Reagan, but she knew she was behaving wisely. The more she appeared to have bent to the Crown's will, the safer she would be. Though Westley and the others in the network that helped her didn't like Grayson, they all agreed that she had created a brilliant cover. No one asked what she had had to do to gain the British officer's protection, and she didn't offer the information. She didn't reveal to them that she was in love with the man. As far as they knew, it was all part of the ploy.
"Afternoon, Mistress Llewellyn. " A tall man in a fashionably feathered cocked hat stopped on the corner, waving his silver-tipped walking cane.
"Afternoon, Mr. Baxter. " He was one of the Tory sympathizers who had brought his family to Philadelphia to take advantage of the occupation. He had broken into a large, airy house down by the wharf and made it his own. Last night she and Grayson had attended a reception there.
"And how are you? Lovely crowd last night, wasn't it?" He removed a gold toothpick from his coat and stabbed it between his teeth. "I was so pleased that Major Burke and Major Durgen were able to come. The food was quite exquisite, wasn't it?"
"Quite," Reagan responded, forcing a smile. The thought that this man was serving smoked duck stuffed with oysters and orange cake while Washington and his men lived on half-raw shad make her furious.
"Fabulous man, that Thayer boy. He'd make a perfect suitor for my dear little Constance. " Baxter lifted a powdered eyebrow. The toothpick moved up and down as he spoke. "I take it you intend to hang on to him?"
"Captain Thayer and I have no formal agreement. " She smiled sweetly, already creating a political cartoon in her head, featuring the effeminate Mr. Baxter.
"No, no, of course you don't. " He smiled, a jealous twinkle in his eye.
"Well, I have to get to the market, but it was good seeing you. Give Mistress Baxter and dear little Constance my best. " A giggle rose in Reagan's throat as he passed by, tipping his hat. Dear little Constance needed all of the help her father could give her in finding a husband. The poor girl had a face like a heifer and the brains of a bottle fly.
Reaching the busy market, Reagan made her way through the crowd. Fishmongers and dairy men called out their wares. Fat geese hung from a wooden frame above the poulterer's booth. An old woman with herbs chanted her plants' medicinal purposes, guaranteeing she could cure anything from women's ailments to gout. Just about anything could be purchased here at the market for a price—and the price was exorbitant.
A group of red-and-green-coated soldiers wandered through the market, laughing as they drained bottles of cheap ale bought at a booth down the street. A covey of young women stood near a weaver's stand giggling behind their paper fans as the soldiers passed singing a bawdy song.
Reagan rolled her eyes heavenward. Had she ever been that young? She took in their pink cheeks and rosy mouths. These girls still dreamed of falling in love, being swept off their feet, and carried off to a wedding bed of chaste kisses and sweet wooing. Yes, Reagan decided she had been that young, a very long time ago—before the war. She had dreamed she would marry Joshua and they would fill her grandfather's home with children. She had known nothing of love and its bittersweet sorrows.
"Nothing ever turns out the way you expect it to," she murmured.
"What, girl?"
Reagan looked up, realizing she'd spoken out loud. A pinch-faced farmer stared at her. "You want the turnips or no?"
"How much?" she asked, flustered.
"Tuppence."
"For turnips?" She laughed, brushing past his stand. "I think not, sir."
Turning and walking back in the direction she'd come, Reagan purchased a small bag of dried beans, a slab of pork, and a handful of dried spices sealed in a paper packet. Her purchases made, she decided to start for home.
&nb
sp; Just before she reached Fourth Street, she encountered a shopgirl, displaying a card of grosgrain ribbons. Tentatively, Reagan reached out to stroke one of forest green.
"Two tuppence," the shopgirl spoke up. "Came from It-taly. Purty, ain't they?"
Reagan chewed her bottom lip pensively. It was beautiful. It would look so pretty in her hair. And there was a red one for Elsa.
"A tuppence for them both and you've got a deal," she finally told the young girl.
"Sorry, ma'am, but my mistress she said no dickerin'. The price is the price. If you don't buy 'em, the next one will."
Impulsively, Reagan snatched the red ribbon off the card. "I'll just take this one then."
"If ye don't mind me sayin' so, ma'am, the green'd be better for that hair of yers."
"No. " She fished the precious coin from her pocket. "It's a gift. " A peace offering, Reagan thought. Elsa had been cool to her a good month now. She went about her business at home, spending long hours at church on Sundays. She had said nothing of the blacksmith, so Reagan assumed that though she was still angry, she saw the wisdom of her sister's decision.
Paying the shopgirl the precious coins, Reagan tucked the scarlet ribbon into her market basket. Elsa had always liked pretty things. Perhaps the gift would bring her around. Reagan missed her sister's sweet disposition. She missed the little Elsa she had known before the incident with the blacksmith.
"Hey, you, Tory wench!"
A voice from behind startled Reagan. She spun around.
"Yes, you!" A slender woman in a graying mobcap and heavy wool petticoats stood a few feet behind Reagan.
"Me?" Reagan didn't know what to say.
"What? You stupid? Me and the old man saw you struttin' up and down the street with that man of yours."
"And we don't like it," a man shouted from behind the woman.
"You oughta be ashamed of yerself, your papa weren't hardly cold in the grave and you were offerin' your tail to the Brits!"
To Reagan's horror, a crowd was beginning to gather around her. "Leave me be! It's none of your business!"
"Our moppets live on bread and scraps of cheese and ye're wearin' pretty bonnets and marchin' up and down the street to them parties," another woman accused.
"You don't understand," Reagan protested. The crowd was pressing closer. Someone reached out and knocked her new hat off her head.
Reagan gave a cry of fright, backing up into the arms of a short, foul-smelling man. "Not so fast, we ain't done with you yet, redcoat whore!"
Reagan stumbled forward. Won't anyone come to my aid? she wondered wildly.
Hands reached out to tug at her sleeves and someone tried to yank her market basket from her arms. "Stop it. Stop it!" she demanded. People pushed and shoved her, shouting obscenities.
"Whore!" a high, shrill voice accused.
"You know what we do with Tory whores in other cities, don't you?"
"Yes! We tar and feather the wenches!"
A hand reached out, wrenching Reagan's new neck-handkerchief from her bodice.
With a frightened scream, she knocked a woman to the ground and pushed her way through the crowd. A sob rose in her throat as she darted down an alley, heading for Spruce Street and the safety of home. To her horror she could hear footsteps behind as the agitated crowd pursued her.
Running as fast as she could, her basket clutched in her arms, she turned another corner, weaving around a building hoping to lose them.
But the angry voices and the drumming of feet did not fade away. Reagan had heard of these crowds of disgruntled patriots attacking Tories, but she had been told by her network of friends that they were harmless. This was not harmless!
Reagan cut a sharp corner onto Spruce Street, but when she did, her quilted petticoat caught on the rusty hoop of a rain barrel. She cried out as she buckled to her knees. Footsteps pounded on the cobblestones behind her as she grasped her new petticoat and gave a yank, tearing it asunder. Freed, she stumbled to her feet, her eyes fixed on the front steps of her home.
"There she is!" someone cried from behind. "There's the little pettifogging trollop!"
Something round and hard smacked her in the back as she took the brick steps two at a time. Running into the front hall, she dropped her basket, slammed the door shut, and threw the iron bolt home.
Elsa came running down the hallway from the back of the house, her petticoats bunched in her hands. "Sister! What's wrong?"
Reagan gasped for breath, too angry for tears. She heard something hit the door with a thud and a splatter.
Voices came from the street as the crowd shouted and pelted their ammunition of rocks and rotten vegetables.
"Where's your soldier now, slut?"
"Come on out here, little lady! Show us what ye're showin' every redcoat in the city!"
Something else struck the door and a pane of glass shattered in the sitting parlor.
"What are they saying?" Elsa demanded. She ran to the window, but Reagan pulled her away from the crowd's view.
"Just let it be, Elsa. They'll go away."
Elsa stood for a moment, listening. "A Tory! They're calling my sister a Tory!"
"Elsa . . ."
Elsa gathered her skirts and raced up the grand staircase.
"Where are you going?" Reagan ran after her sister, afraid of what she might do.
"Nobody calls my sister a stinking Tory!"
"Elsa! Come back here!"
Reagan chased her up the steps and into Elsa's bedchamber at the front of the house. Reagan watched in horror as her sister threw open the window.
"No, Elsa! You mustn't!"
"Who you callin' a Tory?" Elsa demanded from the window.
The woman in the mobcap who had started it all at the market looked up, squinting. "That redheaded dropdrawers, that's who!"
"That's my sister you're talkin' about, and I don't like it!" Elsa shouted, her hands perched on her hips. "Now you get out of here and you leave my sister alone!"
The others in the crowd began to laugh. Someone pelted a potato and it flew through the open window, landing on Elsa's bed.
"You stop throwin' that stuff right now!" Elsa shouted.
"You gonna make me?" the woman below screeched.
"Yeah!"
"Then come down here and try it, sister of a trollop!"
"Elsa, please," Reagan begged. "You'll only make it worse!"
Elsa turned around, her jaw set with determination. "Nobody calls my sister a dropdrawers and gets away with it!" She strode across the room and opened a small cabinet, extracting a chamber pot.
"Elsa!" Reagan breathed. "What in heaven's name are you doing?"
"Nobody calls my sister names!" Elsa pushed Reagan aside, sticking her head back out the window.
"I thought you was gonna come down here!" the woman called from below.
"Are you leavin' or not?"
"Hell no, we're not leavin'," the woman's husband shouted, coming to stand on the steps beside his foul-mouthed wife. "Tilings is just gettin' fun."
Reagan watched in stupefied horror as Elsa leaned out the window and turned the chamber pot upside down, spilling its contents. "Take that, slattern!"
Screams and bellows came from below as Elsa closed the window and marched across the room, returning the chamber pot to its proper place. A smug smile dominated her angelic face.
"Elsa!" was all Reagan could manage as she stared in disbelief at her little Elsa. She couldn't believe her dear sister could have done such a thing.
Closing the cabinet door, Elsa slapped her hands together with pride. "Won't be coming around here anymore, will they?"
Reagan stared stricken at her sister, and then burst into laughter.
Elsa looked at Reagan and began to giggle.
Reagan laughed louder, then harder, clutching her stomach as tears of merriment formed in her eyes. "S-slattern! Elsa! Where did you learn to use such language?"
Elsa giggled, running to the window. "They're gone," she m
anaged.
Still laughing, Reagan plopped herself on the floor. She rolled on the braided rag rug, pounding the floor with her fists. "Did you see the look on her face?"
Elsa snickered, coming to sit on the floor beside Reagan. "You've torn your new petticoats!" She sniffed, breaking into another fit of giggles. "They're ruined!"
"My new lace neckerchief is gone, too. " Reagan laughed harder.
A minute or two passed as the two sisters tried to gain control of themselves, but each time they looked at each other they burst into laughter again.
Finally Reagan sobered. She lay on her side, cradling her head on her arm. It had been years since she had lain on the floor with Elsa.
"Reagan! Elsa!" Sterling called from the hallway.
"In here," Reagan answered. "In Elsa's room."
Sterling stuck his head in the doorway. "What's happened? Did you know the front stoop is covered with rotten vegetables and filth?"
Reagan took one look at Elsa and the two burst into laughter.
Sterling looked from one to the other in total confusion. "What's gotten into you two?" He shook his head, backing out of the room to leave the women to their merriment.
Hours later Reagan and Sterling lay in the afterglow of lovemaking. Reagan teased the blond hair on his chest with her fingertips.
"Reagan."
"Mmm?" She leaned over, touching his nipple with the tip of her tongue.
"Reagan, do you know anything of these pamphlets?"
She had known this was coming. She was only surprised it had taken this long for Grayson to ask. "Pamphlets?" she responded innocently.
"Don't play coy with me. " He nipped at the lobe of her ear and she laughed deep in her throat. "Those damned pamphlets are popping up everywhere again, and Major Burke is on my tail. " He rolled onto his side and reached over her. From the table next to the bed he extracted one of Reagan's leaflets. He placed it between the full globes of her breasts. "Well?"
"Well, what?" She tossed it aside with disinterest. "I told you Papa wasn't your culprit," she said in a singsong voice.
Temptation’s Tender Kiss Page 19