Ring of Secrets

by Roseanna M. White

  Alarm bells clanged in the depths of her mind. How in the world could someone have seen that within an hour of meeting, when those who supposedly knew her well thought her superficial at best?

  Father in heaven, protect me.

  She blasted him with her most brilliant smile and strode forward, leaving him little choice but to turn and fall in beside her. “What a charmer you are. Your family is all from New York, are they not? How is it you only now come to our fair city?”

  The light dimmed in his eyes. “Fair? What I have seen of it since coming home two days ago bears little resemblance to the New York I knew before the war.”

  “The current state of things has been hard on everyone, to be sure.” She studied the wallpaper as she spoke, as if merely parroting what she’d heard others say and not sharing her own observation. As if she, in this golden world, had remained untouched. Oblivious.

  “I imagine so.” His voice was too soft, too understanding—but thankfully, he shook himself. “To answer your question, I have been at Yale. First as a student, and then I stayed on as faculty.”

  “Yale.” Questions sprang up, but she covered them with her usual smile. “I know it, of course. Grandfather calls it ‘a hotbed of Whiggish sentiment.’ It sounds delightful. I should greatly like a wider selection of wigs, perhaps one of those with so many curls a servant must follow behind with a stick to hold it up.”

  He laughed. No polite chuckle or a chortle that he thought to be at her expense, but a genuine laugh of delight. Of understanding.

  Or perhaps she was too tired, overwrought with all this business, and seeing things that weren’t there. Surely that made more sense than a total stranger comprehending her so immediately.

  His mirth quieted to a smile, and he proffered his arm. “Your grandfather has the right of it, to be sure. I found there were many opportunities for debate.”

  Somewhere deep inside, a kernel of warmth took up residence within the block of ice in her chest. Had anyone ever continued to talk seriously to her after one of her “misunderstandings”? Winter tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “You often debate on the fashion of wigs, then? Most intriguing. How many rows of curls do you prefer? Do you favor the gray powder or the white?”

  He sent her a wink that ought to have scandalized her. “A good Yale man can debate any topic, Miss Reeves. For my part, I prefer no wig at all, as you can see. And powder makes me sneeze.”

  “’Tis a problem, I confess. Some enterprising chemist ought to devise a better recipe.”

  “Or perhaps some enterprising lady of fashion ought to make wigs a thing of the past, for the sake of our sensitive noses.”

  She made a show of debating that as they regained the ballroom. “I shall take it under consideration, to be sure. But I so enjoy the display.”

  Mr. Lane opened his mouth to retort, but before any words could come forth, another young gentleman walked up. He had brows closer to red than brown, a face well-dusted with freckles, and a cheerful gleam in his eyes. She recognized him but had never been told his name. All she knew was that he was considered beneath her.

  “Ah, George.” Mr. Lane grinned and slapped a friendly hand to the newcomer’s shoulder. “Miss Reeves, allow me to introduce to you Mr. George Knight. He and I are childhood chums.”

  “Miss Reeves.”

  She held out her hand and measured her smile to the appropriate brightness, gauged according to what her grandmother would approve. “Mr. Knight. Are you one of the esteemed Staten Island Knights?”

  “Ah.” He’d barely bent over her hand before releasing it. With a glance toward Mr. Lane, he shifted his feet and grimaced—he probably intended it for a smile. “No, miss. No relation that I know of. My family are gunsmiths.”

  Those Knights? Far more interesting than the stuffy landowners her grandparents so admired. Not that she ought to be interested in such things, so she put on the patronizing smile that always felt so vile upon her mouth. “Oh.”

  Mr. Knight pursed his lips and turned to Mr. Lane. “Excuse me, Ben. I only wanted to find you to let you know I’m off. Do stop by sometime in the next few days. We have years to catch up on.”

  “Certainly I shall.”

  They clasped wrists, and the gunsmith bowed curtly to her. “Good evening, Miss Reeves.”

  “And to you, Mr. Knight.” Her usual, absent smile would cover the pang snubbing him caused her. This was the part of life in her new society she would never get used to, this expectation to dismiss decent people based on their income.

  Up until a year ago, she would have been the one dismissed.

  The scowl that creased Mr. Knight’s forehead as he turned away proved the success of her facade. How…excellent.

  Exhaustion settled on her shoulders and sent her gaze toward the tall case clock in the corner of the room. Not yet eleven thirty. The celebration would continue at least until one.

  Mr. Lane studied her again, his blue eyes like a torch seeking out an escaped convict. Thankfully Colonel Fairchild approached. She had already promised him another dance, which was surely about to begin. The perfect excuse to escape Bennet Lane. With a little luck, she would be able to avoid him the rest of the night.

  With a little diligence, forever.

  Three

  December 1779

  Ben chafed his hands together and anchored down the rolled paper with his inkwell and a book. His gaze traveled over the map yet again, though he’d memorized it even as he sketched it. Now to add a few more noteworthy locations.

  He cast a longing look toward the fireplace, though he daren’t build a fire yet. Fuel supplies were dwindling, and though he could probably bribe the right men to get a bit extra, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not when so many others needed it more than he.

  Soon he’d have to be off anyway. They were expecting him at Hampton Hall.

  With his quill dipped in ink, he set to work. On the map he had marked each affluent home—the ones where high-ranking officers gathered, where gossip was likely to venture from benign to sensitive. Hampton Hall. Barton House. The Felders’, the Parks’, the Masons’. Several others he’d managed to visit over the past few weeks. Enough that he now recognized which families moved in the circle he would scrutinize.

  He’d ventured out into the city during the days too, to reacquaint himself. He wanted to get his bearings in a town depleted of so much of its previous self. Yesterday he had wandered over to the eastern side, where the burnt-out shambles from the Great Fire still stood black and forlorn, mile after mile. From the battery all the way to King’s College, nothing remained but a charred memory of the New York he had known as a boy.

  Part of him wished he had never come home. If only this quest had taken him somewhere else, anywhere else.

  He drew a line around Rivington’s Corner at the bottom of Wall Street, home of the Royal Gazette. Though the paper didn’t have the stellar reputation of the New York Mercury, the newspaper’s office was a meeting place of officers eager to pass along tantalizing tidbits for the Gazette’s owner to exaggerate before printing. They also had their favorite coffee shops, public houses, vendues…all of which he intended to frequent. Not so much to see who was speaking, but rather to discern who was listening.

  Were it not a holiday, he would head out again now. But alas.

  On a separate piece of paper, he made notes of the next places he intended to visit. The favored tailor of the officers, under the guise of needing a finer suit of clothes than his tenure in Connecticut had permitted. He’d stop in for coffee afterward at the shop owned by the same Rivington who ran the newspaper. Perhaps from there he would follow any gossip he heard to a few new locations, which he would then add to his map.

  Explore, discover, document.

  He rested his quill in its glass holder and flexed his frigid digits. His father’s old, large house was as drafty as it was impressive.

  “Hallo, there! You home, Ben?” The muffled shout came from outside his fr
ont door.

  At least George was still in town. Smiling, Ben removed the weights to let the map roll back up and shoved his work into a drawer. He would take it all back up to his personal quarters later. “Coming.”

  “Well, hurry it up. My hands are full. Don’t you have a footman?”

  “’Tis Christmas, you dunderhead. I gave him the day off.” Ben jogged to the entryway, wrenched open the door, and found his friend to be without exaggeration. He frowned at the stack of boxes and wrapped parcels in his arms. “What in blazes is all that?”

  George arched his brows, incredulous. “’Tis Christmas, you dunderhead. I have brought you a gift, and Mother sent a few treats for your supper. Are you sure you will not join us?”

  “Ah.” He relieved George of half his burden and led the way to the table. “I cannot, but thank her for me. I will be at the Hamptons’.”

  He turned in time to catch George’s sneer. “Calling on Her Lady of Oh again, are you?”

  “Her lady of…George, where do you devise these things?”

  “Didn’t you see her face when I confessed I was not one of the Staten Island Knights? It was as if I ceased to exist. And never before in my life have I heard someone manage to contain a world of dismissals, disappointments, and judgments in a single ‘oh.’” He folded his arms over his chest, the very image of stubbornness.

  Ben loosed a long exhale, though a grin fought to burst forth. “You judge her too harshly.”

  Now George’s arms flew up. “I? I judge too harshly? Have you bothered to tell her ladyship that she judged me too harshly?”

  “Her ‘ladyship’ did not judge you at all.” And she hadn’t given him the chance to tell her anything in this past month. Other than exchanging basic civilities, she wouldn’t be budged from Colonel Fairchild’s side whenever they were in company.

  No need to let George know that, though.

  His friend leveled an accusing finger at his nose. “Do you know what has happened to you? I shall put it in terms you can understand. You are Odysseus, and she is your siren. You had better lash yourself to your ship, my friend, or face destruction on the rocks of her island. She may look the part of an enchantress, but she has no heart within her, as most anyone will tell you.”

  “All this wisdom gained from seeing her across a crowded ballroom a few times and exchanging a single greeting. Your intuitiveness astounds me, George.” Ben lifted the cloth on a particularly fragrant package. “Ah! Bread. Your mother has enough flour for this?”

  “She had been hoarding it for the Christmas feast, apparently, and thank heavens for the freezing temperatures or it surely would have been weevil ridden by now.” George leaned onto the table, bending over to catch his friend’s gaze. “Ben. I grant hers is the prettiest face in the City of New York, but you have better sense than to get caught up in her game. If she does give you the time of day, it will only be because of your family’s fortune.”

  And yet if that were in her mind, she would have obeyed those prods he’d seen her grandmother make toward him rather than avoiding him so adroitly. No, Miss Reeves was not interested in his fortune.

  Though any observer would argue she wasn’t interested in any of his other qualities, either.

  He flipped open another parcel. “And bread pudding too. You know, I grew so accustomed to not celebrating Christmas as per New England regulation, ’tis hard to remember it is more than a quiet time of reflection for so many of my friends and family.”

  “Celebration became considerably louder when the British arrived, for certain. Their revelry helps me understand why our Puritan forefathers forbade such boisterous observance of the day.” George tapped a box. “Your gift.”

  “Yours is there.” He indicated the present, wrapped in calico, that sat on his side table. When George had fetched it, he untied the string on his own gift. And laughed.

  George did as well, holding up the book Ben had selected for him. Alexander Pope’s translation of The Iliad.

  Ben held up his new Odyssey, courtesy of the same translator. “Your warning about Miss Reeves suddenly makes sense.”

  “I noticed you did not have your copy here. Perhaps you left it in Connecticut, but I know how you love to pass a winter night with Homer, so it seemed a lack in need of filling.” George shook his head and smoothed a hand over the tome. “And because many of mine were lost in the fire, this one included, I greatly appreciate your thinking the same.”

  “Certainly.” He waved a hand at the treats covering the table. “Would you like some?”

  “I must hasten home. If my sister and her family get there before I do, I shan’t hear the end of it all day. And since I cannot convince you to join me…”

  “I do appreciate the offer, George. And the book. Shall I give Miss Reeves your felicitations?”

  “I would prefer it if you gave her your own permanent farewells.”

  Chuckling, Ben saw his friend to the door. Then he sighed when silence smothered him yet again. He enjoyed quiet, even depended upon it much of the time, but he also relished a good debate, an evening spent in philosophical discourse. Things sadly missing from his current existence.

  Well, he might as well head to the Hamptons’. He may not find any exhilarating conversation there, but perhaps he’d be able to corner Miss Reeves again. Another taste of her delightfully underhanded wit would be a welcome change from all these thoughts of spy-catching.

  After donning cloak, hat, and gloves, he went round back for his horse and set off for Hampton Hall.

  Minutes later he was doffing that which he’d just donned and following a servant into a parlor bursting with well-dressed merrymakers. A few of the officers looked to be in their cups already, their laughter loud and grating.

  Was there no happy place between silence and carousing? Perhaps he ought to have gone with George after all.

  “Ah, Mr. Lane. Welcome, and a happy Christmas to you.” Mr. Hampton held out a hand in greeting, thunder in his brows. Did the man not know how to smile?

  “Thank you, sir, for opening your home to me.”

  Hampton grunted and nodded toward a flock of young gentleman. “Wilkens and Prescott are over there. Friends of yours, are they not? There is still a good while until supper, though the ball shall begin soon.”

  Ben barely managed a nod before his host was off to welcome another guest, if “welcome” was the proper term.

  “Bennet Lane, there you are. I thought you would never arrive!”

  “Oh…ah…” He could feel his neck flush as he turned to find Elizabeth Shirley, one of the prettier young ladies he’d met, standing before him, her fan hardly covering the coquettish tilt to her lips.

  “I…that is…” Blast. His tongue felt thick and boorish, to match his addled brain. Think, man, think.

  Whom did she look like? Her nose—it was the same shape as Daniel Clifford’s, and Daniel was a fair-minded fellow. He had a taste for the ridiculous, though, that could certainly reveal itself in a smirk not unlike Miss Shirley’s.

  Daniel. Daniel stood before him now, undoubtedly preparing for some hideous play, given the frippery he’d dressed in. That was it.

  Ben cleared his throat. “I do hope you are enjoying a pleasant Christmas?”

  Daniel swished his fan. “I am indeed. Mrs. Hampton has paired us for supper, you know. I look forward to it.”

  Daniel dissolved fully back into Miss Shirley, and Ben could manage no more than an “Ah…yes. Well, then.” He nodded as he edged away.

  He drew in a sharp breath. Deuces and blazes, why couldn’t he act the part of a normal young buck? At least every now and again. But no, Providence had seen fit to reserve such gifts, which wasn’t very Providential at all, now was it? Ben ought to do them all a favor and mire himself with the other gentleman, thereby sparing himself and every female in the house a goodly dose of embarrassment.

  His gaze tracked to the corner of the room, where Miss Reeves stood at the window. Theodosia Parks and Emeline Bar
ton sat on the settee beside her, but she seemed oblivious to her friends’ chatter. She stared out the window as if the skiff of snow covering the gardens had some magical secret hidden within its crystals. For the first time since the night they met, he noted the stiffness of anxiety in her neck and shoulders.

  Miss Parks directed a question her way, and yet again he watched her assume a facade of ease that obliterated the telltale tension. Her smile was of perfect brilliance, and whatever she said had the girls tittering, though the look they exchanged between them seemed to also say they thought her dimwitted, however delightfully. When Miss Parks turned from her again, Miss Reeves let her eyes slide shut for half a moment, and then she turned toward the door.

  He was following before he could consider the wisdom of it. They had been at many of the same functions in the preceding weeks, but not since that first one had he seen her slip away from the gathering.

  Perhaps Providence was with him today after all.

  “Not running away, are you, my dear?”

  Winter had to bite back tears at the unwelcome voice, though she pasted on a bright smile. “Colonel Fairchild. I will be back directly.”

  The colonel grinned and took her hand, pressing a kiss to it. “I am sure you will be. I have barely had a chance to enjoy your company this afternoon, so busy have you been with your friends.”

  Busy. With her friends. Those silly girls interested in nothing but fashion and beaux, who made an art of insulting her in subtle ways that they assumed she didn’t understand.

  She swallowed the sob that threatened her throat and prayed her grin was convincing. “They’ve been regaling me with descriptions of the lovely gifts their parents gave them for Christmas.”

  Concern flickered in Fairchild’s eyes as he studied her. “Have you a headache, Miss Reeves?”

  Regret mixed with the sorrow that had haunted her all day. For all his verbosity, for all his loyalties, he was a decent man. One who seemed to care for her. She owed him more than she gave him, for certain. The least she could do was convince him not to worry now. “Grandmother warned me against eating too many sweets, but you know I cannot resist them.”