The Turncoat

by Donna Thorland

  “Kate.” Mrs. Ferrers spoke urgently now. “Are there any other papers in the house that could incriminate your father? You must show me.”

  She remembered the letter in the mantel. “No.” The panel was well hidden, the letter safe, and Mrs. Ferrers was clearly not to be trusted.

  “Good. Now.” She took Kate’s hand in her own and led her to the front of the house. “We go to meet the enemy.”

  The two women emerged into the afternoon sunlight and Kate was blinded by the glitter of polished spurs and weaponry. The man who slipped lightly from his horse and took the steps two at a time to bow deeply before Mrs. Ferrers was tall and broad-shouldered. Kate found herself watching the play of muscles beneath his closely fitted cavalry breeches. Slim, erect, he did indeed have blue eyes, and was most certainly an officer, but his lips were thin, and his hair was neither fair nor short, but long and black, and encased in a tightly wrapped silk queue. He was not, in short, Bayard Caide.

  Two

  Peter Tremayne was saddlesore, hungry, and acutely aware of the picture he must present to the locals. There was a reason why the British Regulars were so easily caricatured: the stereotype was often true. They were rough men, badly supplied, and far from home. His own mother wouldn’t have let them past the door in their faded regimentals, and yet the colonists were required to quarter soldiers in their homes.

  Today Tremayne carried General Howe’s plans for the campaign against the Rebel capital, Philadelphia, in his dispatch case. He had hoped to join John Burgoyne on the expedition north but instead had endured a month at sea with hesitating Howe and his fractious military family, a tedious, hot journey plagued by bad winds all the way from New York. These prolonged a ten-day cruise into a one-month ordeal. Galloway and the other Philadelphia Tories had seduced the general south with promises of a country teeming with Loyalists, but Tremayne failed to see how a territory such as the Jerseys, so hostile that the British could not march their army through it and were forced to approach by sea, would yield up a groundswell of support for the Crown. His horse had died on board ship, and the heat and the unfamiliar mount were adding to his bad temper.

  He very much wanted a hot bath, a soft bed, and gentle company, but he was resigned to accept a cold basin, clean straw, and the grateful affection of his horse, if any of these things were to be had. His troop had been sniped at all the way from Head of Elk. The grannies of Pennsylvania were disturbingly good shots, and they seemed to spend more time loading rifles than embroidering cushions. America was the stuff of a career soldier’s nightmare, a morass becoming deeper by the day.

  The neighborhood they were passing through promised somewhat more hospitality. He had met Quakers in England and America and found them kind and generous, if naive and somewhat dour folk, and they were largely if not Loyalists, then at least pacifists.

  Despite the rigors of travel, he was glad to be out of the city. He had been raised in the country, and on long rides he found he rather liked the American landscape. He could forget, for a time, the halfhearted manner in which his superiors were prosecuting this conflict, the lives and fortunes being poured into this pointless war.

  The manor house was well sited, built in the classical style, and if its proportions and ornament were fifty years out of date in England, its scale promised some modicum of wealth and comfort. Five windows across and two stories high beneath a graceful dormered roof, with granite stairs rising to a pillared porch, and red brick on a foundation of local stone. Charming.

  The lady who greeted him at the top of the stairs was certainly the most decorative Quaker he had ever seen, resplendent in up-to-the-minute shell pink satin. She would put half the women of King George’s court to shame. He bowed, kissed her hand, and said something polite in passing to the niece, who looked as plain a piece of country business as he’d ever set eyes on.

  The lady, Mrs. Ferrers, immediately put the girl to heating water for a bath. The size of the house promised beds, for himself and his officers, and something about the lady’s too-familiar gaze told him that gentle company might be his for the asking.

  * * *

  When will General Howe invest Philadelphia with his troops, Major? We hear the army has disembarked at Head of Elk. A glorious victory, to win back the Rebel capital, surely,” Mrs. Ferrers flattered.

  Kate tried to hide her amusement by taking a sip of watered rum. The glass sweated in the August heat and dripped onto her apron. She should have taken it off, as a mark of respect for their visitors, but she found she had precious little respect to spare for Redcoats.

  They were seated in the back parlor, along with a young man introduced to Kate as Lieutenant Phillip Lytton. He divided his time between shifting uncomfortably on the frayed horsehair chair and glancing surreptitiously at Kate.

  Her seat in the corner of the room, wedged between the harpsichord and the sewing table, allowed her the luxury of studying the major. Peter Tremayne, Viscount Sancreed, had at least one quality that Kate approved: he was immune to the charms of Mrs. Ferrers. He must, she decided, be a few years past thirty. Tall, lean, correct but not ostentatious in his tunic, he had wiped his boots carefully outside and wisely chosen the lolling chair with a slipcover.

  “It will be a victory by default, and hardly glorious,” he replied. “Philadelphia is open on all sides. It has no defenses. Congress will flee, along with most of the Rebel population.”

  “Then you must be looking forward to winter quarters in the city. I hear that General Howe keeps merry company.” Mrs. Ferrers, Kate was realizing, had taken the wrong tack with Peter Tremayne. Prepared to dazzle quite another man, one amenable to flattery and enamored of high living, she had no notion how to seduce a sober, tired aristocrat with a long road in front of him.

  Tremayne didn’t answer, only smiled thinly and sipped his rum.

  Phillip Lytton, looking painfully young and decidedly uncomfortable, rushed to fill the silence. “Yes, it will be very gay. Captain André—he is on the general’s staff and much admired—has already planned a masque for next week. I hope we’ll be back in time to take part.”

  “What you hope for, Lytton, is a swift end to this pointless conflict.” Tremayne put his empty glass down. “Howe has the advantage. He should press it, and take Washington while he can. Any general but Howe would have beaten Washington by this time.”

  Lytton began to stammer his apologies.

  Kate, used to discoursing on matters political with her father, spoke before thinking. “And any general but Washington would have beaten Howe, I believe is the opinion of the London Times. But you and they are wrong.”

  Lytton stopped fidgeting. Mrs. Ferrers closed her fan. And Peter Tremayne, for the first time all afternoon, looked less than bored. He sat up in his chair.

  Mrs. Ferrers, desperate to break the tension, moved to fill Tremayne’s empty glass. He laid his hand over the cut crystal without looking up at her.

  He fixed his cold blue eyes on Kate. “Miss Grey, do you mean to tell me that you have discerned a strategy in Washington’s tactics?” Tremayne’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I can think of no successful general in history to equal him for retreat and failure.”

  “My niece means no such thing. She’s just going to check on dinner.”

  Kate ignored Mrs. Ferrers. Like her father, she enjoyed few things more than getting to grips with a noble argument. “I hesitate to correct you, Lord Sancreed, but I can. Fabius Maximus, sometimes called Cunctator—the Delayer. He hindered and harassed an enemy superior in numbers until that enemy’s strength was eroded. His tactics during the Second Punic War helped Rome defeat Carthage.”

  Peter Tremayne smiled, an openmouthed, crooked expression of genuine delight that made Kate flush. Lytton and Mrs. Ferrers were quite forgotten. “You know your military history. But Fabian tactics won’t answer here. Rome had a trained army of veterans. Men sworn to twenty years’ service. Washington has only poorly armed militia, whose enlistments are about to expire.”r />
  “Yes,” Kate said, undeterred, “he has something remarkable indeed. A volunteer army.”

  Mrs. Ferrers stood up. “Mr. Lytton, will you help me bring up a butt of wine?”

  Kate barely noticed their departure. Tremayne abandoned the lolling chair to perch on the harpsichord bench beside her. She was scarcely conscious of his proximity, so determined was she to hear what he might say next.

  “Volunteer or no, Miss Grey, you are dependent on Britain for manufactured goods. Where the might of armies may be insufficient, simple economics will prevail.”

  “We rely upon you for goods, Lord Sancreed, because you legislate that we must do so.”

  “Granted. You might build your own industries. But where will you turn in the short run for powder and shot, ordnance, and the machinery of war?”

  Kate opened her mouth, but realized she couldn’t speak the word that rose naturally to her lips. There was only one answer to Tremayne’s question: to France, of course. Up to this point, they had been talking tactics. To answer his question would be to talk treason.

  Kate, used to plain-speaking farm people, realized that she had been skillfully led into betraying herself. Her lips remained open, and her tongue felt strangely dry, as she experienced a tiny epiphany: the world beyond Orchard Valley was very complicated indeed.

  She became aware of his physical closeness and stifled an urge to shrink back. She could not stop herself from looking at the secret panel on the mantel, just behind Tremayne.

  Treason. To speak the name of France, where no doubt Congress was already begging powder, shot, and ordnance, was to speak treason. And behind a slender walnut panel, folded, signed, and sealed, was also treason.

  She willed herself to look away and to answer the man looming over her. “Quakers are pacifists, Major. I’ve no notion where to acquire such things.”

  * * *

  A quarter of an hour of Mrs. Ferrers’ company in the parlor convinced Peter Tremayne that he would be better off with the affections of his horse. Her manner was polished and charming. She laughed prettily at his jokes. She paid him deft compliments and asked a steady stream of flattering questions. She would have been at home in any London drawing room, and like most of the English ladies of her class, she ventured no opinions, offered no counterarguments, tendered no opposition to anything he said.

  So when the country niece, whom he had barely noticed, betrayed an argumentative nature and a curiously martial education, he was intrigued.

  She had made no impression on him outside the house, and later had contrived to hide behind the harpsichord in the parlor. The girl was a baffling contradiction. Her plain clothes, long, undressed hair, and unmarried status marked her as an innocent, but she had the frank and aggressive manner of an experienced woman.

  He moved closer and noted her wide, expressive eyes and fine skin. Of her body beneath the shapeless jacket he could tell nothing. Her skirts were wrinkled and appeared damp and charred at the hem, and he suspected that the granules clinging to her hair were bits of piecrust. He was, against all reason, enchanted.

  The aunt had panicked when the girl started talking politics. The widow was clearly a Tory, anxious to preserve her property and favored status during the occupation. Kate was something different.

  Quaker women, he knew, were encouraged to be freethinkers, and had even been known to preach at their meetings. Whatever Kate was, though, she was guileless. He had baited her easily and noted her sudden flush when she realized what he had done.

  Her eyes had betrayed her. There was something hidden in the fireplace behind him. He was uninterested in her secrets. Quakers weren’t inclined toward intrigue. But his thoughts were turning inevitably to seduction, and this just might prove an opening gambit.

  “Quakers are pacifists, Major. I’ve no notion where to acquire such things.”

  “France,” he supplied. “The Rebels will seek aid from France. The Old Enemy.”

  “But surely that would bring the French into open war with Britain.”

  “Yes. And for that reason, France won’t risk such aid unless the Rebels win a significant victory. Trenton, no matter how many Hessians were captured, was a skirmish, not a battle.” Without taking his eyes off Kate, he ran his hand along the mantel behind him, felt the spring, and pressed.

  He didn’t turn to look. The expression on the girl’s face, her dark eyes wide, told him he’d found what he was looking for. The sound of surprise she made was curiously erotic to him.

  He turned to the opening he had discovered and fished out a sealed letter. He turned it over in his hands. No address. “How charming. A secret letter. Miss Grey, whomever can you be writing to?”

  * * *

  Kate had been reluctant to trust Mrs. Ferrers. Now she wished fervently that the missive had been fed to the fire.

  Peter Tremayne turned the letter over in his long, slender fingers. “No address. Now that is mysterious.”

  Kate realized that Peter Tremayne was playing a game unfamiliar to her.

  “Perhaps we should open it to determine its direction?” He fingered the seal on the letter.

  She held out her hand and spoke as she would to an errant child. “It isn’t addressed to you. That much is clear.”

  He looked at her open palm curiously and appeared to consider it a moment. He held the letter out to her, but before she could grasp it he snatched it back and trapped her extended hand in his empty one.

  His thumb slid over her palm, invading, intimate, alarming.

  Kate was a stranger to seduction. Youthful crushes had come and gone without the heady sensation his touch was eliciting, which she dimly recognized as lust.

  An excellent word choice, as lust was inappropriate desire, and nothing could be more inappropriate than a Quaker coupling with a soldier, a man of violence, a killer. All of this passed through her mind in an instant. She called upon common sense to extricate her from Tremayne’s grasp but discovered instead a latent talent for banter.

  “Now you possess my hand and my letter. That leaves you no hands free.”

  He slipped the letter into the breast of his tunic. “Now my left hand is free. What do you suggest I do with it?”

  She willed herself to look away from his long, elegant fingers and instead found her eyes trapped by his pale blue gaze. Her voice sounded tiny and far away when she spoke. “The Latin word for left was sinistra. Sinister. The Romans mistrusted the left hand.”

  His voice was very soft now. “So should you.”

  Her whole body was tensed, waiting for his touch, but it didn’t come.

  Instead he continued to caress her trapped hand, circling his thumb intimately in the center of her palm.

  He released her and stepped back just as the door opened behind them. He must have heard Mrs. Ferrers and Lytton in the passage. Kate had been deaf to the world.

  Mrs. Ferrers didn’t so much as glance at the open panel in the mantel. She breezed in on a raft of chatter, followed by a bright-eyed Lytton. “You’ll find a tub laid on in Mr. Grey’s room, top of the stairs. Dinner is being brought out to the barn for your men. We can dine after you’ve had your bath.”

  “We’ll pay for the foodstuffs we consume, of course.” Peter Tremayne kissed Mrs. Ferrers’ hand on his way out, taking Lytton with him. He sketched a polite bow in Kate’s direction, betraying none of what had just taken place.

  Mrs. Ferrers shut the door behind the men, and stood silent and still until the stairs stopped creaking and the door to the best bedroom closed above. She crossed the room, pressed the secret panel shut, and rounded on Kate.

  “You’re either a very stupid or a very clever young woman. I can’t decide which.”

  Kate felt very stupid indeed, but she met Mrs. Ferrers’ gaze steadily. The older woman scrutinized her. Kate couldn’t stop herself from pushing back her hair, and was distressed when pie crumbs fell out.

  Mrs. Ferrers laughed. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” She swanned ou
t of the room on a tide of rustling silk, leaving the scent of gardenias behind her.

  Kate smoothed her apron and shook her plain skirts out. She was not clever, but she was sensible. Peter Tremayne had her father’s letter, and somehow she must get it back.

  * * *

  The heat broke in the evening.

  Sara and Margaret were unused to serving dinner, and it showed. Flustered from their dealings with the soldiers in the barn, suspicious of Mrs. Ferrers, and terrified of Tremayne, they broke glasses, spilled wine, and, Kate suspected, finding what looked like a bit of quill caught between her teeth, had neglected to thoroughly pluck the chicken.

  Tremayne sat in her father’s chair at dinner and noticed none of this. Mrs. Ferrers sat opposite. In between, Kate, Phillip Lytton, and two of Tremayne’s junior officers made up the dinner party.

  Kate had contrived to seat herself beside the major. Mrs. Ferrers appeared to have abandoned her efforts to engage him, and turned her attention to dazzling the junior officers, who were now enjoying one of her anecdotes. The complete tale of Colonel Donop, Kate noted in passing, was far saltier than the version offered to the Quaker matrons of the morning.

  Phillip Lytton had progressed beyond casting surreptitious glances at Kate and moved on to enthusing about the London stage.

  “I saw The Rivals just before I left London. It’s a marvelous play. You would like it. The heroine’s name is Lydia—”

  Tremayne was in good humor. “I don’t think Miss Grey’s people approve of the theater, Lytton.”

  Lytton was mortified. “I’m sorry, Miss Grey. I’m afraid I know very little about Quakers.”

  “Don’t be, Mr. Lytton. I’ve never been to a play myself, but the major is wrong. My people quite like the theater.”

  Tremayne raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yes?”

  “Yes. General Washington’s favorite play is Cato.”