The Patriot's Conquest

by Vanak, Bonnie

  “A desire for revenge, good sir. Mr. Merton openly said he refused to sell Clayton a slave he wanted. I have heard from some of my men of Clayton’s foul temper. Indeed, his very savagery at St. Francis with Robert Rogers. He massacred several Indians in cold blood, as was the wont of that band of Rangers.”

  Never a finer performance had she seen before. Amanda felt torn between anger and applause.

  George cross-examined Christopher, reminding him, and the jury, that Jeffrey served the British and that the Indians were not innocents, but had taken hundreds of scalps of white settlers. He stood throughout the endless questioning of witnesses, pressing his hands on the bar. With every question flung at him, her husband stood straight and tall, though she knew the process must weary him. Finally, it was Jeffrey’s turn. Randolph was skilled, brutally clear and direct.

  “Do you recognize this, sir?” Randolph held up his silver eagle’s head cane.

  Amanda’s heart beat faster. Jeffrey stared at the cane, then glanced upward at the gallery.

  The dull look of resignation on his face made her feel sick.

  Seeing Amanda and her distressed expression, Jeffrey forgot all his hurt and mistrust. He wanted to give her a reassuring smile and let her know he was fine. But if he smiled, he feared he’d lose all control. Instead, he tightened his jaw, looking straight ahead.

  “Mr. Clayton, I asked if you recognize this.” Randolph repeated.

  Jeffrey swallowed hard. “’Tis mine.”

  “And pray tell, sir, how did it come to be found outside the burned ruins of Mr. Merton’s home? Unless you yourself dropped it there in your haste to flee the scene!”

  “I did not put it there,” Jeffrey stubbornly insisted. His shoulders sagged from exhaustion. He longed to slide to the floor. With all his strength, he forced his legs to lock and hold him upright.

  “Oh? You did not place the cane there? Mayhap an angel swooped down from Heaven and dropped it there in your stead?”

  Laughter rang out at Randolph’s remark. A red-headed angel had stolen away the cane, Jeffrey thought in weary resignation.

  More than the physical fatigue was the sheer presence of Amanda’s betrayal, held now in Randolph’s fist. Betrayed once more by a woman he’d loved, trusted, and had given his heart and soul to with open arms. And she’d stabbed him. Jeffrey tasted fear and defeat bitter as vinegar. There was no hope for him now. Not even George’s brilliant oratory could save him.

  He knew enough about law that the evidence against him was damning.

  When the examination was done, the jury left the courtroom to deliberate and return with a verdict. He waited, turmoil swirling in his stomach, for them to return. It did not take long. As they filed back into the courtroom, Jeffrey’s thin thread of hope snapped. None would look at him. So when the court clerk stood to read the verdict, he half expected the answer.

  “Guilty of the capital crime of arson.”

  Jeffrey made a low whistling sound, feeling as if someone had punched the breath from his gut. He struggled for composure. Damn if he would let the public see his shock and distress.

  Guilty.

  “It cannot be.” The words spilled out in a low strangled whisper. Amanda clutched the railing, feeling dizzy. Her father caught her arms, else she would have pitched over the side.

  Guilty. Her husband was going to die.

  She could not bear it. The very idea that the cane she’d promised to repair helped convict him turned her gorge. By her hand, he’d die!

  Her heart plummeted into her stomach. Never had she felt so helpless.

  “Papa, we must do something.”

  He shook his head, looking dazed. “But what?”

  Then George petitioned the court for the prisoner to have a closing statement. A most unusual request, but to her amazement, Dunmore granted it. Amanda turned back toward the bar, to listen to her husband’s words.

  He would stand in silence no longer.

  Utterly calm, as if he faced nothing stronger than an audience eager to hear Greek poetry in the Apollo room, Jeffrey placed both hands on the railing.

  “British regulars burned my own house in Boston while I stood watching helplessly. Arson is a most vile and cowardly act and I stand here before God, knowing of my innocence. If all here present were honest, fair gentlemen, then they would admit the real reason I stand trial here. Not for arson, but for lighting a different fire among the people—the fire of freedom. ’Tis known I am a patriot dedicated to freeing the colonies from England. My voice was most vocal in calling for restoration of the gunpowder to the city’s magazine. I have seen the grave injustices committed by King George’s political lackeys and I will not be silenced!

  “Do I burn? Aye, I burn with the fire of liberty to shake free the shackles of England.” Jeffrey held up his hands, rattled his chains. “I burn with the need for release from the chains of taxes the King and Parliament slap on us to make our hard labor pay for their fopperies. I burn with anger over England forcing us to obey laws that compromise our own individual rights.”

  He drew in a rapid breath. “I will not quench this burning. I will not stop speaking against the moral injustices committed by His Majesty’s soldiers. Against the foul misdeeds of stamp taxes, tea taxes, no legal representation in a government that controls us and the heavy weight of shackles imposed by England. Indeed, you may try to silence me through death, but my voice will ring out for liberty long after. I will rise up in the people and my spirit will reign long after, crying out for freedom. God save the liberties of America!”

  He threw back his shoulders, his heart drumming such a violent cadence he knew it echoed throughout the great chamber. Not a voice murmured. The audience sat silent. Then someone in the upper gallery began to clap. Another person joined in and another until a great resounding applause filled the room.

  Jeffrey turned to gauge Dunmore’s reaction. The governor’s wig shook as his upper body trembled. From rage? Or fear? Dunmore frowned and pounded on the table. “Silence,” he demanded.

  “Very well then, prisoner, since this is the last day of the Court, sentencing will follow.” Dunmore picked up a document and began reading in a nasal tone. “Let it be known the prisoner Jeffrey Clayton, having been determined guilty of the felony of arson, is sentenced to death by hanging.”

  Dunmore’s face lit in triumph. “You have ten days to get your affairs in order. And then you shall be stretched from the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  AMANDA WENT TO visit her husband the next day. But when the gaoler told Jeffrey her identity, he called for her to go away.

  Stunned with shock, she stood on tip-toe, curling her fingers around the iron bars of the door window. “Jeffrey, please. I want to see you.”

  “Go away Amanda, I’ve not the desire to do the same.” His voice was lifeless and dull.

  “Jeffrey, please, just to see you...”

  “They’ve given me ten days to get my affairs in order. But do you know what your fair England will do? There is no need to get my affairs in order for all my property will forfeit to the Crown. England will confiscate everything I own. There will be nothing left for you. So if you framed me hoping to acquire all my worldly goods, you will not.”

  She railed at him in French, explaining she did not frame him. But he did not answer. Frustrated and grieved, Amanda left, pressing her hand to her abdomen. How could she share her joyous news when he thought she’d betrayed him?

  Every day she kept coming back to the gaol. Still, Jeffrey refused to see her.

  Five days before his scheduled hanging, she tried again. He refused. Crushed, Amanda leaned against the heavy wood door, pressing her palms against it. If she could not see him, then at least to be near him.

  Numb with grief, she left. Her own husband did not wish to see her. Soon he would die. The thought swirled around her head in a vicious taunt.

  She stopped at the shoemaker’s to p
ick up shoes for Sara and Miles, whose feet seemed to be growing faster than the crops. As she mounted the steps, Amanda became aware of a clutch of well-dressed, wealthy women staring. She recognized them from Lord Dunmore’s ball, women sociable to her because of her cousin.

  One murmured, “That’s Amanda Clayton, once Amanda Reeves. Her husband set the fire. Man deserves to hang. He’s a low-bred rebel.”

  Amanda halted and turned. Once she’d desired nothing more than to associate with these women and enter into society. Her chin tilted into the air. “My husband is innocent and a good, decent man. His only crime is desiring to be free of the class differences pompous, daft bores like you place on others!”

  Their jaws dropped as she entered the shop.

  The shoemaker set her order on the counter. “Ready money only,” he said in a gruff voice. “No credit for wives of criminals here.”

  She lifted her head proudly. “I have cash,” she snapped, plunking the coins on the counter.

  Amanda gripped the shoes and lifted her head as she descended the steps. Snubbed. Ostracized. Treated rudely, for people thought her a common criminal’s wife. For the first time in her life, she had no desire to blend with respectable society. All she could think of was her Jeffrey and how to save him.

  Desperate for diversion, she walked to her parents’ store. Once inside, her mother greeted her with a triumphant smile. Her father was not there.

  “So your husband has been found guilty. I knew it all along Amanda. He is a no-good brigand. You should have listened to us and married William. You were always a headstrong, disobedient child and now look at what has happened to you.”

  Hands shaking, Amanda set the shoes upon the counter, gripping them tightly lest she capitulate to the urge to slap her mother.

  “Jeffrey is an honest, courageous man who stands up for his beliefs and is willing to fight for his rights. He was framed for this crime and I plan to stand by his side as long as he draws breath in his body. I will not have you call my husband a brigand. I will not stand for it. Do you understand?”

  Satisfaction filled her as her mother gasped, stepping back as if Amanda had turned into a spitting demon.

  She turned to leave, nearly knocking over a portly man in a purple coat and matching breeches.

  “Mistress Clayton. I am much relieved to see you here. I have sought you since my return yesterday morn.”

  She gave Daniel Merton a suspicious glance—the very man whose house Jeffrey had been accused of torching.

  “Mr. Merton, please, I have nothing to say to you.” She struggled to pass him, but he reached out and caught her arm.

  “Is there somewhere private we may talk?”

  Amanda paused, courtesy winning out. “The weaver’s shop. Stephen is a friend of my sister-in-law. ‘Tis more private. Meet me there in few minutes and ask Stephen to take you to the storage room.”

  A short time later, they were at the shop, surrounded by bolts of fabric, a few spinning wheels and a broken loom awaiting repairs. Merton paced about the small quarters. “I returned as soon as I heard of my house being destroyed and your husband’s arrest.” He pursed his lips. “News travels quite slow to North Carolina. I have something of great importance to tell you.”

  He gestured with his walking stick. The silver eagle’s beak gleamed. It looked just like Jeffrey’s. Anger slammed her with full force.

  “Mr. Merton,” she hissed. “How dare you! You set fire to your own house, risked all your property, to frame my husband and send him to the gallows. You are a vile, evil man who will stop at nothing to see a good man hung, an American whose only crime is to fight passionately for an ideal he fervently embraces! Aye, now I see why Jeffrey despises England so! ’Tis because of foul-minded brigands like you!”

  She ranted and raved, raging with all the frustration, anger and fear felt since hearing Dunmore proclaim the death sentence. Merton kept trying to interject, but she would not let him.

  “Mandy! Will you be still for a minute?”

  Mandy? Jeffrey’s pet name for her? Only Meg and the children knew of it. People he loved. And if this person, Jeffrey’s sworn enemy knew of it... Confused, she glanced at him.

  And then he held out his walking stick and in a very solemn, deliberate gesture, unscrewed the eagle’s head and removed it. Pointed it at her so she could see it well—the stick was hollow. Realization began to click.

  “You and Jeffrey... the canes—”

  “Aye,” he said in a grim voice. “Now we must talk and talk fast, for there will be no time to spare if we are to save your husband from the gallows.”

  Daniel told her how he, Jeffrey and Patrick Henry had formed a spy ring, using the canes to swap information.

  “The day of the fire, your husband was meeting me, telling me how Patrick had settled the issue of the gunpowder and Dunmore had agreed to paid for it. After we met, I left for my daughter’s house in North Carolina.”

  “So that was it. And why you did not sit judgment at Jeffrey’s trial.”

  He nodded. “I had already cleared it with Lord Dunmore to have another replace me on the court, knowing the General Court would meet during my absence. But dear Lord, I had no knowledge it would be Jeffrey’s trial.”

  Amanda closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. “That explains much. But it does not matter now. We must find a way to free Jeffrey without endangering you, for if they knew you were with him, they would question and discover you are no Loyalist, but an avid patriot as he is.”

  “I see no other means than to confess I was with him, giving him an alibi.” The man’s face contorted. Yet he would do the honorable thing.

  “Nay,” she replied softly. “Jeffrey would already have done so. I know my husband. He would never forsake another’s life for his own. He knew if he revealed meeting with you, people would ask questions and you would be found out.”

  Daniel thumped the cane on the floor. “Can you think of how Jeffrey’s cane could have been planted at my house? Who would want to see him hang?”

  “Half the town’s loyalists,” she murmured. “Along with my own mother, I am certain.” A memory tugged at her. “My mother—the cane!”

  Amanda looked up, horrified. “Mr. Wythe asked how it found its way to your house. I told him ’twas dropped off at the silversmith’s. In all the confusion, I forgot I did not drop the cane at the silversmith’s that day! My mother did.”

  She ruminated over the thought. Could her mother have done some nasty deed in her hatred for Jeffrey?

  “Mr. Merton, stay here. I shall return.”

  Minutes later, she returned, deeply shaken. She raised her gaze to meet his.

  “Mother informed me she had no time to drop the cane off. William offered to do it in her stead.”

  “Christopher? Lord Dunmore’s secretary?” At her nod his gaze narrowed. “Mistress Clayton, I suspect he took the cane to implicate your husband in a capital crime. He has double the reason for wanting your husband to hang. Make you a widow and rid Lord Dunmore of an arch enemy.”

  “But surely there must be some way we can prove this.”

  Merton scratched his chin. “If only we had an inside person at the Governor’s Palace, someone less noticeable than I.”

  “But we do.” Amanda thought of Julie. “There is Julie, a scullery maid who can help us.” If only William left some proof—but he likely had! His journal.

  “My ex-beau keeps a journal. He often bragged about how he recorded sweet victories in it. If he did this crime, I am certain ’tis written in this book.”

  “Such a journal would be proof of your husband’s innocence,” Daniel said.

  Hope rose slowly. She felt it flutter, as fragile and tenuous, yet as real as the tiny life growing inside her belly. Amanda and Daniel exchanged smiles.

  “Excellent. Now may I suggest, ’tis time for you to pay a visit to this Julie to see how she fares at that household?”

  Amanda slipped inside the kitchen gate of the Governo
r’s palace. In the scullery, Julie scrubbed a large iron pot. As Amanda beckoned, Julie wiped her hands on her apron and followed her into the kitchen garden. They walked to the far end, Amanda keeping an eye upward at the servants chattering inside the kitchen.

  “Miss Amanda! How lovely to see you.”

  “’Tis not a social call, Julie, but an urgent request. You know my husband will hang in but four days.”

  Julie’s smile dropped. “I had heard, Miss Amanda, I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  Amanda glanced up and lowered her voice. “I need to gain entry into Captain Christopher’s room. There is a journal I need to prove my husband’s innocence.”

  Julie’s pretty round face turned pale. “Oh, Miss Amanda, I don’t know, if they catch me, I shall be sorely punished.”

  “You are my last hope of saving Jeffrey.” She caught the girl’s hands in her own, hoping her pleading voice would sway her. “I would not ask if not desperate.”

  Anguish tightened Julie’s expression. “You did save me from the almshouse. But why would Captain Christopher save him?”

  “Not William as much as what he recorded in his journal.” Quickly she explained.

  Julie’s brow furrowed. “’Tis most strange. That night, the night of the fire, I was in the kitchen, cleaning the hearth when Captain Christopher stumbled in. Startled me a good fright, he did. Him all smelling of smoke like a big ham that had been roasting on a spit for hours. He had on strange clothes, too, not a uniform, but working man’s clothes.”

  Working man’s clothes. Jeffrey was seen as a working man. William was shorter than Jeffrey, but in the night’s confusion, running from a burning house, shouting words people knew Jeffrey had uttered only recently...

  “Julie, did William say anything?”

  “Oh, he said something all right. He had a nasty burn on his hand and wanted butter to cool it. Yelled at me to fetch it. I did so and left, he scared me so with his threats. Said I wasn’t to say anything about it.”