Ring of Secrets

by Roseanna M. White

  The second man grunted. “Seems to me, sir, that ’tis obvious she is not working alone. And given what I have seen of her, ’tis equally obvious she has no part in the brains of it.”

  “We will keep an eye on her. Perhaps she will lead us to whomever else she is working with.”

  “Now see here, General, I told you from the start that I have business taking me out of town this afternoon. I’m happy to pick it up again when I come back next week, but—”

  “Fine, fine. Their letters are never closer together than a fortnight anyway.”

  Ben paid no heed to their farewells. His gaze snagged on that unobtrusive H again. What in thunder?

  Heat—the primary developer for invisible inks. Of course. He turned to Viney and motioned toward her lamp. “Do you mind if I borrow your flame for a moment?”

  She lifted her brows but waved her acquiescence.

  Ben slid over to it and held the paper up. Close, then closer to the open flame. Closer still until the smell of scorching paper filled his nostrils, until a faint sizzle reached his ears. Until the invisible ink filling the space between the lines of nonsense turned a golden brown.

  What fun it has been to be part of your experiment! I did so enjoy helping you create the stain and acid. But alas, the current climate being what it is, we had better call a halt to our game before someone thinks us really involved in espionage. ’Tis a shame we never found a reliable formula, but perhaps you can try again after this dreadful war is over, when it will not seem such a suspicious hobby.

  Perhaps he would have smiled at what was an obvious attempt to explain away the evidence of her involvement, had it not spoken to the fact that she must know someone was closing in. Must be frightened. What if she did something foolish? Something that got her killed?

  Blast it all, this was precisely why he had hoped no one he knew was involved in this.

  And she wondered at his lack of faith. How could he have faith, the substance of what one hoped for, when his hopes had shattered so fully?

  “Is it as bad as all that?” Viney cradled her cup in her hands and regarded him with a solemnity strangely colored with cheer.

  “Worse.” He lowered the singed paper and let his shoulders droop. “Winter is involved in something that could get her killed. For months I have been trying to determine who—and it was her all along.”

  The girl, for some reason he could not fathom, smiled. “How fortunate you discovered it, then, so you can help her while those men outside are about other business and so paying no attention to her.”

  His frown felt harsh on his brow. “Fortunate? Are you daft? The very hour I accept her challenge to pray about all that is going wrong in my life, I learn this about the woman I love—and you call it fortunate?”

  She traced a finger around the dented edge of her cup. “Perhaps this seems like a blow to you, whatever it is. But would it have been better if you had not found it out and those men out there got ahold of her?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “It would have better had she not been guilty of it at all.”

  “So you will blame the Lord for the decisions she has made? Decisions that I suspect run deeper than anyone else could know?” She turned her head away to cough in a handkerchief. It came away stained red.

  Decisions no one else could know…another something he could well understand. “Then if Providence were leading me to it, He could have led me sooner so I could help her before she was discovered and removed her from the city entirely.”

  Again she smiled. “When would you have done this, sir? Three months ago? Six? A year? And yet if you had, I never would have met her. And so she would not have given me the gift that allowed me to survive these last few months without inviting anyone into my tent.”

  Though she stated that last part with calm, he shuddered on her behalf. She was a mere child. She ought not have to suffer such things.

  But Winter, somehow, had helped save her from it. “You are saying that the Lord sees what I cannot.”

  “More, sir. I am saying that this very day is the right and proper time for whatever is unfolding. That every step you have taken until now has led you here according to His perfect will.”

  Led him here? Ben frowned. To get to this particular place, at this particular time—to meet this particular girl who, against all odds, knew Winter—he had followed Arnold, thanks to that verse, and he had found the letter that fluttered his way. Only because he had paused to pray, as Winter urged him. To which he would not have been receptive had he not been contemplating all he stood to lose.

  A reality that would not have been so forceful had the news of Father’s death not reached them when it did, had he not been at Rivington’s that day after Fairchild had met with Arnold’s unsavory contact.

  Yet he may not have believed all this possible of Winter had he not first discovered Townsend’s involvement, which certainly would not have happened had he not stumbled upon the right information connecting him to Woodhull, Brewster, and Tallmadge. Information all made clear by those verses.

  And how much information had come from Fairchild? Yet he never would have known the man had they not been pursuing the same woman. He never would have dared approach Winter, though, had he not needed a well-connected courtship as an excuse to enter the society he had long shunned.

  Winter. A woman he had only met because of an urge to go to that first party, where he saw the dichotomy in her behavior. But he had gone because he had a mission—one he had never questioned, yet which had come to him by what he had deemed an accident.

  One random line in a letter Archie had sent. One random piece of gossip about a man named John André, who had whispered a plan to a young woman who Archie then charmed.

  His head swam. “If every step leading here was orchestrated by God…”

  She smiled and clutched her cup close. “Then He must love you very much to have planned such an intricate journey. Correct?”

  A breath of a laugh escaped his lips as all his knowledge, all the memorized Scriptures stored in his mind, at last coalesced into a picture. One of a God involved in His creation. Of a Father who had steered him to this very spot in ways Ben never could have imagined, no matter how long he contemplated it. “Quad erat demonstratum. And so it is proven.”

  Viney placed the cup on her rickety table and stood. “I feel you must hasten to Winter, sir. But before you go…” She moved a rug and then a broken shingle covering a hole, out of which she drew a small velvet bag. After untying it, she poured three pearls into her palm and held it out to him. “This is what remains of the necklace Winter gave me. Would you return them to her?”

  He studied the gleaming spheres and then her pale face. “Do you not need them?”

  How could a smile seem at once to be peaceful and yet no more than a ghost? “Nay. I know enough of consumption to realize this burst of energy I have felt these past few days will be my last. The provisions I just purchased will keep me until the end. It will come soon, and I am ready for it. Please.” She held her hand closer to him.

  His throat tight, Ben reached out and plucked the pearls from her palm.

  She seemed to relax. “Thank you. I pray they will serve as a reminder of His provision, of His plan for us all. Will you tell her I send my greetings? And assure her I have prayed for her daily, as I promised I would?”

  His fingers curled around the gems. The lustrous promises. He had to squeeze shut his eyes for a moment. What was that verse about casting pearls before swine? That was what he felt like now—unworthy. All his life he had not only doubted, he had reasoned his way into rebellion against the Lord. Yet still He had guided him, had blessed him, and had, so quickly after being asked, demonstrated Himself to him. “I will tell her.”

  “Thank you. And what hours I have left will be spent in prayer for the two of you.” She pulled tight the shawl around her shoulders. “Go now. Quickly.”

  Her command lit an urgency in the very core of his spirit.
He nodded, pocketed the pearls along with the brittle, burnt letter sure to crumble around them, and flew out. Over Holy Ground. In search of the promise still waiting to be grasped.

  Twenty-Seven

  Winter watched Freeman disappear up the steps to the stable and heard his footfalls lead him to the far corner, where Percy lay so near death.

  Her gaze swept the room. Everything was in its place. The inks, the quills, the paper, her books. The silver had been returned to its hiding spot. The gun rested on the table before her, loaded and ready.

  Unease burned her stomach. No matter how much she prayed, she couldn’t shake the feeling she had made a mistake. Taken a misstep. That the enemy was closing in.

  She ought to return to the house, but her limbs froze when she considered distancing herself from her sanctuary right now. Something was happening. Some scale had been tipped.

  God of my end, help me to know Your will for me.

  More footsteps sounded above her, entering from the main doors. Her gaze flew to the narrow, steep staircase. Was that light from above slivering through? Surely Freeman had closed the trap door carefully, hadn’t he? He always did.

  But when Percy had screamed in such pain…

  Well, there was no need to fear the worst. She clamped down on the instinct to panic, to rush to blow out her lamp. As jittery as she felt, she might knock it over and thereby draw unwanted attention on herself—not to mention ignite all her most precious belongings.

  Instead she held her breath and closed her eyes. Father in heaven, protect me.

  The footsteps came directly overhead. Paused. Shuffled. That bar of light went dark.

  Winter’s arm stole out of its own accord, and her fingers wrapped around the handle of the flintlock.

  A creak, far too familiar—the sound of the trapdoor being raised. Knees shaking, she rose too. Her arm lifted until it extended the gun before her. She aimed at the stairs and whoever would come down them.

  She recognized the boots, scuffed and worn as they were, and the shape of the legs that followed them. He descended quickly, pulling the door closed above him. “Bennet?” Her voice shook to match her hand.

  He didn’t seem surprised to see her down here—until his gaze landed on the gun. Hands flying upward, his eyes bulged. “Blast it, Winter, put that down! You could ki—wait. Is that one of George’s?”

  She tried to calm her racing heart, but in vain. Though she did lower the weapon. “Yes.”

  “How in thunder did you—never mind.” Lowering his arms back to his sides, he stepped from the final stair onto the packed dirt of the floor and looked around. “I suppose I should simply accept that you find ways to procure things, be they weapons or information, that I never suspected. You have everything you could need down here, I see. I must say, when I saw that trap door open, I did not expect to discover this.”

  As her heart lurched into her throat, he wandered over to her shelf and picked up the vial once filled with stain. Only a drop remained—he shook it. “The infamous invisible ink, I presume? Have you the formula? I toyed with a few myself, back at Yale, but I was never satisfied with their darkness when developed.”

  She tried to tell her fingers to relax, to direct her hand to set down the weapon. They wouldn’t budge. “No, I…Bennet.”

  He put down the vial and strode to the scarred desk, lifting her code book and flipping it open. “Ah, the next level of protection.” His brows knit. “Why did Tallmadge assign numbers to words like ‘a’ and ‘an’? They are used so often it all but guarantees the code can be broken by anyone who intercepts it.”

  Her eyes slid shut. He knew the code was Tallmadge’s. What else did he know? “Bennet…”

  “Really, even I know that much, and I have certainly bumbled my way through the rest of it.”

  “The…you…” She opened her eyes again. “How long have you known?”

  He put the book down, but not where she had kept it. Instead, he set it in a crate. Gathering the evidence with which to hang her? Yet he grinned. “Oh, about an hour now, I suppose. Though I am embarrassed to have missed it this long. I grant I had no idea for whom I was looking when I came to the city seeking Washington’s spies, but I never suspected you. Townsend, yes—but not you.”

  When he came to the city seeking Washington’s spies? She raised the pistol a few inches, though she knew even as she clung to it that she couldn’t use it. Not against him. Even if he were the enemy, even if he would drag her to the hangman himself, she could never hurt him.

  Though he probably didn’t realize that when he turned to her again and saw her defensive pose. Which was probably why a mild curse slipped from his tongue. “Will you please put that thing down?” Obviously not trusting her to do so, he closed the distance between them, pried it from her grip, and set it on the table.

  Never in her life had she felt so exposed. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t…but you…”

  He framed her face with his hands, and the love shining from his eyes blanketed her. “Do you really think I would hurt you? Or let you be hurt?”

  Surety descended, smothering the doubt and stilling the fear. “No.”

  “Good.” He brushed a stray hair from her face and feathered a kiss over her lips. “Even were I your enemy, my love, I would do all in my power to protect you. But the truth is that I did not seek the spies so I might turn you in. I sought you so I might warn you.”

  She gripped his wrists, looking from one eye to the other. And still she could not comprehend how those words could be true. “Warn us of what? And why?”

  His second kiss lingered a fraction longer. “Why? Well, I’m afraid your grandfather was right—Yale is a hotbed of Whiggish sentiment. I may have gone there a fine, loyal young man, but one of the primary reasons I had never come home was because I could no longer believe the politics my family held dear.”

  “You mean you are…” Dare she hope it? “…a Patriot?”

  He grinned. “Call me whatever you like. A Patriot. A rebel. A man very relieved to have realized that I need not beg your forgiveness for it, if nevertheless terrified at the danger you have put yourself in with these actions of yours.” He slid his hands down her arms and locked her hands in his. “Why, Winter? Why would you do something so perilous?”

  She gripped his fingers and forced a swallow. “My father is not dead, Bennet. He is in Washington’s army.”

  His eyes widened, and his fingers tightened around hers. “Alive?”

  She pressed her lips together. “Are you angry?”

  A small smile bloomed. “How could such good news anger me?” He leaned a little closer. “I rejoice for you. Now, please. Continue.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “When Robbie asked me if I would pass along information, I knew I had to do whatever I could to help Father’s cause—my cause. To bring him back safe and whole. Can you understand that?”

  His smile was crooked, his gaze sad. “When I consider that your precious life could be extinguished…nay. And yet obviously I do, because I came to New York for a similar reason. My brother shared a plan I could not bear to see come to be, and so I took actions that will separate me from my family. Already I have written my uncle, confessing my politics and my part in stopping the plan to betray Washington through his most trusted men.”

  Her brows knit. “You mean Arnold? But how could your brother have known so long ago—”

  “You, Winter. And Townsend and Woodhull and all the rest.”

  Her blood ran cold. “I don’t understand. There is no treachery among us. We were chosen and bound by trust formed from the deepest of friendships.”

  “I know.” His thumb stroked over her knuckles. “’Tis exactly what they intended to use against you. The plan was to feed you false information, with the certainty that you would pass it along and be believed. And that when Washington acted on it, he would walk directly into General Clinton’s—and now Arnold’s—trap.”

  Fear pounced, clawed, gnashed. “What infor
mation?”

  Bennet drew in a long breath and held both pairs of joined hands together between them. “Archie’s original letter said only that they would use the whaleboaters’ reputations as kidnapping pirates to make Washington think someone dear to him had been captured.”

  Dear Lord above, let it not be so. The Spirit had tried to warn her even as she came down here to write that letter, but she had ignored Him. She thought the impression on her heart nothing but her own fears and dismissed it because it contradicted her more rational thoughts.

  She shook her head. “No. Bennet, Fairchild told me that just the other day.” New pain pierced. “He must know.”

  “’Tis Arnold who suspected it. He undoubtedly told Fairchild to give you the information so they could see if you would pass it on. And if so, plan their ambush for when Washington mounts a rescue.” He leaned closer. “But surely you could not have sent it. Townsend is not here to receive it from you.”

  If only that had been enough to silence her. If only she hadn’t taken matters into her own hands when Robbie had told her to lie low. “I had Freeman give it directly to Roe not two days ago.”

  His eyes slid shut. “Winter.”

  “I know.” She rested her forehead on his shoulder, but his comforting presence could not still the quavering that overtook her. “What have I done, Bennet?”

  He released her hands and encircled her with his arms. “Nothing that cannot be undone.”

  “I cannot send another message. I have no more stain, and Roe will not return for weeks at any rate.” By that time it would be too late. Washington would have already walked into a trap. All because of her.

  His arms tightened around her. “Then we will not send a written message. I will deliver one myself. Take the truth straight to Tallmadge.”

  She tilted her face up so she might see the determination shining in his eyes. The squeeze of her heart changed in pressure, sweet rather than scared. “You are wonderful for offering, but they will never believe you. You are a Manhattan Lane, with a brother in the British army and strong ties to England. I will have to go or send Freeman.”