The Turncoat

by Thorland, Donna

  Her perch on the bed was precarious. She leaned back tentatively. He held on to her wrists, lowering her back to the mattress, watching her eyes intently.

  “Oh.” The sound popped out of her mouth as she felt the angle change deep inside her. She meant, how wondrous. He was hitting her there. In a spot he had not taught her a name for, but he’d found with unerring skill the first time they made love.

  “Yes,” he said, a little smirk of triumph kissing the corners of his lips. “Like that, my love.”

  He thrust.

  “Oh,” she said again. This time she meant, Don’t stop.

  And it was as if he heard her.

  * * *

  He was a bastard. She still hadn’t asked him why he’d come; was too sated to inquire, staring up at him dreamily, her legs sprawled open over his arms.

  They’d never even locked the door. He disentangled himself and rolled her onto the bed. She lay naked and drifting, still damp from her adventures outside and in some places a good deal damper than when she’d started. He wrapped her in the counterpane, mounted the bed beside her, and gathered her cocooned body into his arms.

  She needed sleep. He’d seen the signs of strain in her, these past months, watched from afar as the smile she wore burned brighter, like oil near the bottom of the lamp. He wanted to let her doze, felt a deep and instinctual satisfaction at her dreamy relaxation, but he could not risk being caught here. “I’ve secured your freedom from André.”

  A moment ago she’d been a loose, warm bundle, down in a pillow. Now she was a tied spring. She sat up, holding the blanket over her breasts. It was a small gesture, but one that pained him, when she’d been so trusting and bare before. “What have you done?”

  “Would it help to know that no actual money changed hands?”

  “What did you give André in exchange for me?”

  She would not make this easy. He should have known. “I have promised him an introduction at court. I’ve written letters to the War Office, and to General Clinton, who will succeed Howe. In that, at least, I have not compromised myself. I wrote that he has been an exemplary intelligencer, and that he bested the Merry Widow, a spymistress who had compromised operations in Philadelphia to an intolerable degree.”

  Kate swallowed hard, and he knew what her next question would be. He did not want to be the one to tell her. He’d hoped she’d known, made peace with it, but it was clear that she hadn’t. “What happened to Angela Ferrers?”

  The details, even now, sickened him. He wanted to spare her, but she needed to hear it, if she was ever to see sense. “The night we all dined at Smith’s, she came to my lodgings. She had Carl Donop’s letter, I presume from you. She wanted to know about his last days. I told her.”

  He stopped, steeled himself. “André stormed the house with a troop of dragoons. They took her to the cottage in the Neck where you and I made love, and they tortured her. In the end, she gave them names, and dates, and places. Her entire network. But she did not give them you. She chose to die rather than reveal your name.”

  Kate was so very still, he could barely see the rise and fall of her chest.

  “I have been pressing André to release you ever since,” Peter said. “He has an eye to his future, decoupled from his patron, Howe. And so, today, he accepted my terms. Now you must honor the Widow’s sacrifice and allow me to see you to safety.”

  “To my father?” she asked. But she said it in a small, frightened voice. He should have been glad. Finally, she was broken. So frightened and alone and cornered that she would follow him out of the labyrinth. The harsh truth was the only way to save her. He knew that. And he still hated himself for speaking it.

  “No, Kate. To England, with me.” He took the papers out of his pocket.

  She untied them, then stopped to finger the ribbon. It was the tie from her jacket. The one he’d taken at Grey Farm. She looked up at him, confused.

  “Read them.”

  She did. “This is a marriage license.”

  “Yes. It permits Lydia Dare to marry Peter Tremayne in the Church of England. We will be married, Kate, and then you will be safe. From John André and from Bay.”

  She looked again at the license. “It is dated May nineteen. The day after the Mischianza.”

  She suspected already, so he confirmed her worst fears. “André would hardly let you go before the attack on Valley Forge. Howe’s last grand gesture, a parting shot that might restore his reputation.”

  “The night of his ludicrous party. That’s why you won’t take me to my father. That’s what has been keeping Bay out of the city so much. The attack will take place during the Mischianza.”

  “André wants you in his sight while the attack takes place. I have a pass permitting you to leave the city with me after midnight.”

  “He thinks I’ll try to run, to reach Washington. What makes you think I won’t?”

  “Because I’m responsible for your good behavior. If you flee, I will pay the consequences. I flatter myself that you prefer not to see me hang.”

  “But you haven’t asked for my word on the matter.”

  “Would you give it, Kate?”

  “No.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I place my life in your hands.”

  * * *

  If she was wrong, it was the last mistake she would ever make.

  She was shown into the front parlor of Howe’s Market Street mansion after only a short wait in the hall. She remembered when she’d come to see Elizabeth Loring, all those months ago, and interrupted that puzzling scene between the notorious lady and her cuckold husband.

  This afternoon Elizabeth Loring was the picture of English gentility. She sat before her needlework frame, scrutinizing a painted design of flowers and birds. Her husband lounged by the fire, seemingly a gentleman at leisure, but Kate sensed a watchfulness in him. Howe had made Joshua Loring commissioner of prisoners, and rumor had it he skimmed funds and pocketed money while Rebel prisoners starved. Even if Kate had guessed right about Mrs. Loring, she may have guessed wrong about him. And if so, she would never have the opportunity to sample the man’s dubious hospitality. She would die quietly, in a back room, like the Widow. She suddenly wished the fire were larger. The parlor felt chilled.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure, Miss Dare?” asked Howe’s mistress, her fingers sorting through bright silk yarns. Her heart-shaped face was still and beautiful in the slanting afternoon light.

  Kate waited until the maid closed the door behind her, then said, “I think you know that isn’t my real name.”

  Elizabeth Loring’s hands stilled. Joshua Loring strolled to the center of the room, placing himself between Kate and his wife. “And why should she know a thing like that?”

  Kate stood her ground. “Because I believe we are related, after a fashion, through my late aunt.”

  Elizabeth Loring rose with a familiar, practiced grace Kate should have recognized the first time she saw her. She crossed the parlor and laced her hand in that of her husband. The gesture was unmistakable. They were husband and wife, and lovers, and this man had not sold his wife to Howe for money or power. Kate’s own sacrifices paled in comparison.

  But Joshua Loring, it was clear, felt no answering sympathy for Kate. “How do we know you aren’t working for André? You two are thick as thieves of late.”

  “You don’t.”

  “You should leave, Miss Dare.” It was a dismissal.

  “I need your help. The Mischianza is a cover for an attack on Valley Forge.”

  “You think we don’t know that? We see and hear everything, and can do nothing. Elizabeth is watched. I am watched. We have been trapped since New York. John André ingratiates himself with Howe by politely ignoring the fact that he caught the general’s mistress spying. It is all so very gentlemanly and courteous. But make no mistake—if either of us attempts to leave, the other will hang. We can do nothing for you, Miss Dare, or whatever
your name is.”

  He dropped his wife’s hand and retreated to his place by the fire. Unburdening his frustration and anxiety seemed to have left him hollow.

  Elizabeth Loring remained standing in the middle of the room, her perfect stillness, her practiced calm so like the Widow’s. “In New York,” she explained, “I discovered a British plot to poison Washington. André intercepted my letter to Angela, broke my cipher, and arrested both Joshua and me. Fortunately, I had sent the message by two other routes. One of my missives got through, and Washington was saved. But my husband and I are alive only because of the affection Howe bears for me.”

  Kate saw Joshua Loring swallow hard and shut his eyes at that last.

  They had already risked—and lost—so much. Now Kate was asking them to do more. “If I do not warn Washington,” Kate said, “if Howe overruns Valley Forge, all your sacrifices will have been in vain.”

  The silence stretched. Then finally Elizabeth Loring said, “There is a way.”

  “Lizzie,” Joshua Loring warned softly.

  “There is a rendezvous. Angela Ferrers arranged it before we left New York. There is a man who waits around the clock at the King’s Arms on the Post Road, ready to ride for Valley Forge at a moment’s notice to warn Washington if Howe stirs from Philadelphia.”

  “And André very likely knows it,” Joshua Loring snapped. “The Widow was tortured for hours before she died. She gave them Anstiss Black and who knows how many others.”

  “But she did not give him Miss Dare.”

  “How can I reach this man?” Kate asked. She had an inkling of what they were asking her to do.

  “You must get yourself out of the city. Then there are several changes of horse posted along the way.”

  Joshua Loring’s voice was icy cold. “Which André may also know of. To undertake this ride is suicide, plain and simple.”

  “But the Widow would have done it,” Kate said, considering everything she had known of her enigmatic mentor. Even if André waited for her on the road. She would have shot her way through. Kate had seen her do just that. She’d brought down two dragoons with an unfamiliar gun on a moving horse in the dead of night. Kate wasn’t certain she could do the same, but she doubted the Lorings would disclose the route if she admitted as much. So she forced herself to relax her shoulders and affect a tone of bored insouciance that the Widow would have approved, and said, “I shall need a map. And a pistol.”

  Sixteen

  Philadelphia, May 18, 1777

  Peter Tremayne was filled with a pleasurable sense of anticipation. Tomorrow morning he would wake up next to Kate Grey. He must learn to call her Lydia, of course. It chafed a bit, having to call his wife by a false name for the rest of his life, but it wasn’t as though she must live with an entirely assumed identity. She would be taking his name anyway in two days’ time, and there wasn’t really so much difference between Kate Tremayne and Lydia Tremayne. It was a matter of syllables, nothing more.

  He did not plan to wait for morning to set out. The pass was effective at midnight. They would leave directly from the Mischianza, before it had even run its course. He’d stabled two horses at the Wharton Mansion this morning, and sent the resourceful Bachmann ahead with his things. There was an inn in South Jersey where he had once stayed. It was clean, steadfastly loyal, and on the road to New York. Once they reached Manhattan, maybe even before if they found a willing parson, they could marry, and even if his cousin Bay pursued them, Kate would be safe. Then they could sail for home.

  With all this before him, he found it shockingly easy to enjoy the pageantry. Or maybe it was just because he’d picked her out of the waiting crowds and he enjoyed watching her. The costume was slightly less fetching when dry, but only slightly. The turban and veiling hid her face and hair, and something about the body-skimming cut of the gown hampered her natural grace. Perhaps Kate felt awkward, being so much on display in such a revealing ensemble. Perhaps she grasped the peculiar eroticism of a bared body and a hidden face. Whatever the reason, the result was a slight hesitation in her step, a fussy stiffness when she sat, that suggested she’d like to pull her neckline up and her hemline down at the same time.

  The Ladies of the Blended Rose and the Knights of the Burning Mountain, a bit of doggerel that smacked of André’s invention, did not have to wait for the galleys with the hoi polloi lining the river. Someone had erected a platform adjacent to the dock, topped with a faux marble arch and draped with bunting. He was able to pick out one or two other familiar forms, if not faces, in the group. There was Peggy Chew, the Shippen girl’s frequent rival for André’s affections, unmistakably top-heavy in her ensemble. Kate seemed to steer clear of her. The Knights were unmasked, so it was easy to pick out Montresor, who surprised Tremayne by going in for this sort of nonsense, and Banastre Tarleton, who did not. Neither of them came off particularly well in the orange and black Turkish getups André had designed for the Knights, though perhaps that was André’s intention, as the color scheme suited the spymaster’s dark coloring admirably.

  The little Huguenot himself appeared on and off here and there like a lightning bug. For the myriad parts of the Mischianza hung together only with the constant attention of its impresario. One moment he was instructing the galley captains, the next he was directing the crowd. Tremayne noticed that for once, Kate was acting sensibly and avoiding the man.

  It took an hour to load the boats, and another two to make the trip downriver to the Neck. He could see now why André was so insistent that Kate take part in the pageant. The route was lined with navy boats, the Cerberus and the Dauntless and the Roebuck, and there were marines stationed on every galley. An honor guard, they would appear to the blameless guests. A prison detail, they must seem to Kate.

  The disembarkation was a fussy affair. Wharton’s private dock was draped in silk bunting, and the broad way to the jousting ring and stands was festooned with swags and garlands and punctuated by two triumphal arches. André had managed to cobble together nearly an entire orchestra out of at least eight disparate military bands, and Howe had wasted a fortune attempting to dress them uniformly. There was a good deal of trumpet fanfare alternating with Handel, meant to sound vaguely medieval.

  The Knights and Ladies and well-heeled guests processed to the jousting lists. As a professional horseman, Tremayne enjoyed seeing a bit of trick riding, and the way the Knights handled the unfamiliar baggage of gilt shields and gilt plaster breastplates. André himself was passably good. Tarleton was spectacular but brutal. He seemed not to have grasped that the tilting was entirely for show, and managed to unseat his opponent, a red-faced major who refused to shake hands afterwards and stalked from the field dragging his broken lance. Tremayne made a private vow to avoid Tarleton for the rest of the night. The boy was obviously spoiling for a fight and Tremayne had no intention of being drawn into a senseless duel, not now.

  There was a bit of stagey drama when the Ladies of the Blended Rose stood up as one and begged the Knights of the Burning Mountain to leave off their contests. Their favor was won, they declared, and they would unveil.

  But they could not go directly into dinner yet. The Knights and their Ladies were to lead the way into the banqueting hall, miraculously constructed in under a month and outfitted, it was rumored, at a cost of six thousand pounds. Each Knight in turn was to ride to the viewing stand, receive his Lady’s favor, watch appreciatively as she unveiled, and then escort her in to dinner. The business was going to take forever, which was regrettable, because Tremayne hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  Servants dressed as pages had been coming and going all night, and Tremayne had paid them little attention, but now there was one climbing the stands directly toward him. “For you, my lord,” the boy said, depositing an oilskin package in Tremayne’s hands and departing the way he had come.

  The unveiling was proceeding painfully slowly. Only a quarter of the Knights had claimed their Ladies when Tremayne opened the oilskin package. He knew Ka
te’s writing at once, though he had never seen it before: bold, neat, and graced by unexpected flourishes.

  Only the first page was in her hand. It was brief, and to the point. Where she had gone, André would be waiting, but she had no choice but to try. To get a message to Washington, of course, Tremayne knew, heart sinking. The contents Kate had enclosed, if he kept a copy, would ensure that André did not trouble him further.

  There were only three Ladies left on the platform, including the one he had assumed to be Kate. He leafed quickly through the rest of the letters in the packet. From a boy. To André. Detailed and damning. The price of Tremayne’s safety. He had put his life in her hands, and she—she had handed it back to him.

  He looked up then to see John André approach the stand, lower his javelin, and come alongside the platform. His Lady stepped forward, laid a laurel wreath on his head, and lifted her veil.

  Tremayne did not need to see her face. He saw the ripple of surprise that ran through André. Then the spymaster laughed. Openmouthed, appreciative, and not at all welcome to the girl who stood on the platform, who had clearly been expecting an altogether different reaction.

  Because the lady was not Kate. She was Peggy Shippen.

  * * *

  It had not been difficult to convince Peggy to take part in the deception. She already owned the dress. Her scandalized father had withdrawn his consent only at the last moment, and that was when Kate was drafted to take her place.

  It helped that Peggy had been growing desperate. The expected proposal from André had never materialized. He’d seemed to her singularly unconcerned when she’d told him she was barred from attending the Mischianza. He was slipping through her fingers.

  Kate doubted very much that Peggy would win André’s favor with this escapade, but she could not afford to worry about one spoiled girl’s broken heart. She had sent Peggy off to the docks, turbaned and veiled, assuring her that she was a veritable Cleopatra, sneaking past the guards rolled in a rug to meet her Caesar. Kate refrained from mentioning that the Egyptian did not come to a good end.