The Turncoat

by Thorland, Donna

  He must have looked it, too. Caide emerged some time later, stooping from the low batten door, and rolled his eyes at Tremayne. “Developing a conscience, Peter? It won’t do you any good in this war. Dyson,” Bay called to the lieutenant idling beside the door. “Your turn.” Dyson smiled his vicious, heavy-lidded smile and ducked into the kitchen. There was no noise this time.

  “These people,” Caide said, turning his attention back to Tremayne, “won’t give up until they’ve been taught a lesson. You’ve said so yourself.”

  “Yes,” Tremayne said, placing his foot in his stirrup. “Only I’m not so certain of the pedagogy anymore.” Mounted on his horse, he continued. “Anyway, I thought you recently became engaged to some gilded Tory heiress. What do you need farmers’ wives for?”

  “Ah, well, that’s just the thing. I need farmers’ wives because I am engaged to the most dazzling creature in Philadelphia. And once married, I swear to you, I shall cleave to her bosom and forsake all others. But until then all she does is tease and leave me with an itch that needs scratching.”

  “Clearly your reputation has been slow to reach Philadelphia. I can’t think of a respectable matron in London who would allow you to marry her daughter.”

  “Well, fortunately, Lydia’s mother is respectably dead. And her father’s at sea. Sumatra way. Making a fortune in pepper or some such thing.”

  “You’d be wise to marry her before the blockade is lifted and her father gets a look at you,” Tremayne advised.

  “The thing is all sewn up. Aunt and uncle wrote to her father for consent. We’re to be married in the spring. Only waiting for her father’s return. Howe’s brother will issue a pass so he can land.”

  “With his fortune in pepper.”

  “I’d take her with two pecks of pepper. She’s magnificent. Chestnut hair like silk. Eyes so dark they’re almost black. Skin like new snow.”

  “If the thing is all sewn up,” Tremayne reasoned, “then there should be nothing to stop you from scratching your itch with her.”

  “No. I’d like to, and I daresay she’d let me, but no. In this, if in nothing else in my life, I’m determined to do the thing properly. I won’t bring my bride to the altar in an embarrassing condition, or my children into the world with questionable legitimacy.”

  Tremayne couldn’t argue with that. “What if she’s frigid?” he prompted.

  Caide cast a sly glance at Tremayne. “I said I haven’t bedded her. I didn’t say I haven’t sampled the vintage. In company, she’s a picture of grace and manners. In private, she’s got a wild streak a mile wide. She’s perfect.”

  “For you, certainly,” Tremayne replied. “I wouldn’t wish an innocent girl tied to you for life.”

  “That makes two of us, cousin.”

  They reached Germantown at dusk, where Howe was still encamped with the bulk of the army. “I’m for a glass of whisky and bed,” Tremayne said. He was staying with Caide until he could find his own lodgings in the city. He hoped that Philadelphia would prove more welcoming. Whatever the feelings of the people of Germantown had been before their home became a battlefield, they wanted the British gone now. The pretty stone houses that had once lined Main Street were shot to pieces. Blood spatters stained the remnants of the whitewashed fences and window shutters, and yards were littered with blood-caked doors, called into service as makeshift operating tables after the carnage, and abandoned, indelible with gore, in the aftermath.

  “No. You’re for a game of cards with Black Billy. He wants to see you.”

  Tremayne dreaded meeting Howe. “Liar. He didn’t answer any of my letters. He’s only put me on his staff to keep you happy.”

  “Not so. He has a job for you.”

  “Mucking out his stable, most likely.”

  Caide laughed. “Whatever task he appoints you, you’ll do it and like it, or you’ll never see a command again.”

  Whatever penance Howe had in mind was likely to be far nastier than cleaning stables. The worst part was that Caide was right. Tremayne would never see command again in this theater if he failed to please Howe.

  Which was why he found himself, boots polished, braid glimmering, hair tied neatly at the back of his neck, at the doors of the elegant little manse Howe had appropriated for himself. Light blazed from every bullet-riddled window, and the thick, waxy smell of expensive candles and pricier scent met him in a wave of heat at the door.

  Bayard Caide was in his element here among the crowded tables of cardplayers, the impromptu boxing matches, the dicing, and, in the shadowy corners, the illicit couplings with Philadelphia’s Tory daughters.

  Or wives, in the case of General Howe. Tremayne found him holding court at a table littered with punch glasses, broken pipes, and discarded dice. Mrs. Loring, his mistress, resplendent in teal silk, sat beside him, her husband nowhere in evidence.

  “The prodigal returns, Major Tremayne.” Howe rose from the table to clap Tremayne heartily on the back. “You’ll have to be on your guard here. Philadelphia has no shortage of beautiful American women.” A young girl at Howe’s table, too young, probably, to be out with this company, blushed prettily. “And I’m certain at least half of them are spies.” He turned to his mistress. “Viscount Sancreed here was beguiled by the Merry Widow.”

  Mrs. Loring pursed her lips in distaste. “Really, Major. I would have thought that woman was growing too long in the tooth to beguile any man.”

  “The Merry Widow?” Tremayne inquired politely, feeling for the letter in his breast pocket, folded beside the ribbon.

  Howe smiled sourly. “Your mystery lady, Major, is a notorious agent. The French used to pay her to stir up trouble in Ireland. I believe she was calling herself Ferrers when you met her.”

  Tremayne had heard all of this before in New York, and wished desperately to change the subject, but Mrs. Loring was enjoying herself. “Hessians, of course, prefer their women coarse.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Mrs. Ferrers is how she styled herself. A Quaker lady.” During his court-martial, he had omitted entirely the presence of a young woman in the house, and had never once uttered the name Kate Grey. The letter in his breast pocket revealed her to be a Rebel. She was a traitor, and a spy, and she had destroyed his career. And against all reason, he still wanted her.

  “Come now, Peter,” the general said, and led him out of the room and into a spacious parlor where the carpets were rolled back and a boxing match was taking place. “I have a job for you.”

  The combatants fought barefoot, their breeches rolled up, shirts discarded. Whatever business Howe wished to transact was clearly secondary to laying his bet. “Three crowns on André,” he said, placing his wager and nodding at the swarthy black-haired man, whose footwork was better than his punches. He was fighting a larger, slower man, but they were well matched. André was faster, more agile, but the bigger man was more powerful.

  “What sort of job, sir?” Tremayne asked, attempting to recapture Howe’s attention.

  “Two jobs, in fact.”

  The bigger man landed a blow, and André went down, but only for a moment. He rose back up like a buoy, with a wicked smile and a glint in his eye. He would have a black eye in the morning.

  Something told Tremayne that André did not take kindly to being bested. In his next move, he proved Tremayne right. With speed and grace, he executed a series of dirty maneuvers just clean enough to be allowable, but ungentlemanly all the same, bringing his opponent down in a bloody heap on the boards. It was, reflected Tremayne, exactly what he would have done.

  André collected a tidy pile of winnings, and a simpering blonde slipped his shirt over his shoulders.

  “Good man,” Howe opined, collecting his own winnings, Tremayne, and André, and heading out onto the terrace and into the cool night air. Steam rose off André’s glistening chest. “Captain André here has need of you, Peter.”

  Dirtier than cleaning the stables. On the surface, Captain André was a staff officer and charmin
g dilettante, his name already connected with several of the town’s Tory daughters, most often with the notorious Peggies: Shippen and Chew, though Shippen was said to be the odds-on favorite. No doubt they were charmed by the ambitious Huguenot’s gallant manner and exotic good looks; his coal black hair and gold-flecked hazel eyes. His dress and manner, no doubt learned during his education in Geneva, were altogether impeccable. Few would guess he was the son of a middling Huguenot merchant.

  But his brother officers knew André as a hardened veteran of the siege of Fort St. John. He’d spent nearly a year in captivity after the garrison surrendered, and came away from the experience with a bitter dislike of Americans. Those within Howe’s close circle knew him better as a calculating and ambitious spymaster who would stop at nothing to further himself.

  “You can identify the Merry Widow,” Howe explained to Tremayne.

  Tremayne didn’t like where this was going, and fought against the urge to touch the letter and the ribbon concealed in his breast pocket.

  André drained the glass of punch he was holding and fixed his remarkable gold-flecked eyes on Tremayne. “Mrs. Ferrers won’t come near us, Lord Sancreed, because I can identify her. She’s working through someone else. We need a name.”

  Kate. Her name was Kate. And she was false, ruinously false, duplicitous and beguiling. “I’m not certain I can help you. I wouldn’t know the first thing about ferreting out a spy.”

  “That is unfortunate.” General Howe sounded disappointed. “Do you know what chevaux-de-frise are, Major?”

  “Frisian horses. Some kind of river fortification,” Tremayne ventured. He was a soldier, not a sailor.

  “An incredibly nasty bit of business,” Howe replied. “Pine boxes thirty feet square and weighted with stone, topped with iron pikes. Float ’em downriver, sink ’em, and no ship can pass without exact knowledge of their locations.”

  “Our ships cannot pass,” supplied André. “Philadelphia is a trap fast closing around us. The Rebels control the roads to the north. We are surrounded by water on the south, east, and west. We must have the Schuylkill and the Delaware or we cannot supply the city. Washington hopes to starve us out of Philadelphia and force a winter march on us.”

  Howe downed his beaker of punch in a single draught. “The chevaux-de-frise protect the approaches to Rebel forts Mercer and Mifflin—if we attempt to bring our ships with their naval cannon into range of the forts, they will be holed and sunk. And if we attempt to move the chevaux-de-frise, our craft will be blown to flinders by the long gun batteries in the forts. My brother, the admiral, has four frigates loaded with supplies sitting idle in the Delaware. He cannot reach us.” Almost as an afterthought, Howe added, “Colonel Donop has offered to lead a land assault on Mercer.”

  Donop. The Hessian colonel beguiled and disgraced by the Merry Widow—Mrs. Ferrers—at Mount Holly. The man had lingered there for three days, enjoying the lady’s favors, when he might have brought his men to reinforce Trenton. The dalliance let Washington slip across the Delaware on Christmas and take the town. The capture of Trenton and of Colonel Rall’s garrison of a thousand Hessians and their field artillery had been disastrous, and had all but destroyed Donop’s reputation.

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” André said, hardly troubling to disguise his contempt.

  “I won’t allow it until there is no other recourse,” Howe barked. “It’s throwing away lives to attack by land if we can’t bring our ships to bear on the fort at the same time.”

  “Hessian lives,” added André, as though these were of less consequence.

  “How can I be of help?” Tremayne asked. “I’m no sailor, and I’m no engineer.”

  “Washington has anticipated our every move against his river fortifications, rushing reinforcements to our exact points of attack. Mrs. Ferrers is here, supplying him with information. I require you to find her, and deal with her.”

  “Quietly,” added André.

  “I see.” Tremayne bristled. “You wish me to be an assassin?”

  “Not at all. We wish you”—André began to tie his cravat—“to discover Mrs. Ferrers and her agents. When you do so, you will be returned to command. I will do the rest.”

  “It’s a generous offer,” Tremayne conceded. “May I think about it?”

  “No.” Howe had lost all trace of avuncular jollity. “We are a month away from being starved out of the city, Major. Do you know what would happen to this army if we had to march twenty thousand men and another five thousand loyal civilians through Rebel territory to New York? It would be a slaughter. Mrs. Ferrers is in Philadelphia. It is your duty to find her and lead us to her. The woman almost ruined you. You need have no gentlemanly scruples in this matter. Her capture and…removal…are of the utmost importance to me. Is that clear?”

  It was. All too clear. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Good!” Howe seemed his merry self again. He led Tremayne back into the house, where the petite blonde reappeared and attached herself to Captain André like a limpet. “Now, for the other matter I spoke of. You and Bayard Caide are cousins, I believe.”

  Tremayne made no effort to clarify the relationship. They were, in the eyes of the law, cousins. What else they might be was a source of speculation and gossip for London society. Viewed from a certain angle, the two men looked more alike than cousins.

  “Yes. We grew up together.”

  “He’s always been wild,” Howe added, as the man they were discussing came into view, wrestling with a fellow officer on the cold marble floor of the carved and painted foyer, beneath the wide and elegant curved staircase.

  “Yes,” Tremayne agreed.

  “Wild is to be expected. Milkmaids don’t win battles. But cruel we cannot tolerate. We are losing the people.” Howe gestured at the crowd with his wineglass. “Don’t be fooled by the fops who have attached themselves to the army. This is a country of dour Quakers and Puritan farmers. His ruthlessness has come in handy at times, but he’s a blunt instrument. His raids are stirring up sentiment against us, and we have precious little goodwill here. If we do have to evacuate the city, you can be sure the locals will not forgive us your cousin’s actions.”

  “What would you like me to do?” Tremayne thought back on all the years of his childhood spent covering for Bay. For the girls he ruined, the fights he got into, the servants he beat. And his mind turned inevitably to the farmhouse today…

  “I like Caide. I don’t want to come down hard on him. Just get him to the altar as fast as you can. His fiancée’s a lovely little thing. Maybe marriage will tame him.”

  Not, reflected Tremayne, if the girl was as described—a nascent sybarite with a wild streak to match Caide’s own.

  “Ah!” Howe exclaimed, looking up at the head of the stairs. “Here she is now.”

  The girl descending the stairs was everything Tremayne had expected. Her hair was elaborately curled and piled high on her head. Her brows were artfully plucked and tinted to set off dark, painted eyes. She wore no powder, because her skin was as white as milk already. She wore a diamond on a velvet ribbon around her neck, dyed to match the pale blue of her gown, which plunged to a perilously low square neckline. Her skirts were hemmed to show a daring amount of ankle, and from her wrist dangled a painted fan. An artful, useless creature, of the sort Tremayne found most distasteful: powdered, plucked, and primped, and choked and cuffed with pearls like pigeon’s eggs. Everything from her brocade pumps to her plunging neckline spoke of citified sophistication and coquetry.

  Worst of all, the girl was Kate.

  Five

  The girl who had accompanied Angela Ferrers to Washington’s headquarters six weeks ago would have stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of Peter Tremayne. The coquette who emerged from Mrs. Ferrers’ crucible of artifice and subterfuge might only have dropped her fan, and recovered nicely by the time her silk-shod feet touched the marble floor.

  The woman who had survived a month in the decadent sal
ons of occupied Philadelphia, and captured the affections of its most louche scion, betrayed her surprise to only two men in the room, and Peter Tremayne alone had the knowledge to interpret the flash of panic in her kohl-rimmed eyes.

  Caide broke off from his match to down a beaker of punch and sweep the girl into his sweaty arms. She forestalled his too-intimate embrace, turning lithely to offer Peter Tremayne her hand. “Who is this, Bay?” she asked, as though she had never set eyes on Tremayne before.

  Caide released her and bowed. “Peter, may I present my fiancée, Miss Dare.”

  “Lydia,” Kate supplied, looking him steadily in the eye and challenging him to say different.

  He took the hand offered, which for six tortured weeks he had desperately wished to possess again, as Caide completed their introduction. “Lydia, my heart, my love, my joy, may I present my cousin, Major Peter Tremayne, Viscount Sancreed.”

  Tremayne planted his kiss lightly on her stiff fingers and released her arm to fall like an unstrung marionette at her side. Caide was too drunk and excited to notice.

  “Don’t you know, Bay? We’ve met before,” Tremayne said.

  Again the flicker behind her eyes, which only he could read.

  “Where was that, Major?” She covered her fear with a flourish of her gilded fan.

  “Boston, I believe,” he said, careful to choose a city Bay had never visited.

  Caide, now deep in his cups, was oblivious to the charged environment. “Never been there. Full of filthy Rebels.” He slipped his arms around Kate from behind and drew her back flush against him, burying his face in her elegantly mounded hair.

  It was a gesture Tremayne had seen before. When they were boys, Bay was fiercely attached to his mother. He would flee to her for protection from their outraged tutor, or Tremayne’s father, whichever one had caught them at their latest exploit. Bay would wrap his arms around her, nestle his cheek against her shoulder in the curls of her wheat-colored hair, and beg her to intercede for them.