Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution

by Adair, Suzanne

  "We're going to the house of the Marqués de Arcos first."

  "No, thank you, senhor. That is north. La Iglesia de la Santa Teresa is west, very near La Iglesia Santo Cristo de Buen Viaje, where I am going to give thanks to Nossa Senhora."

  "I presume this is a tradition for you after a voyage to Havana." At the street, fare rate negotiations intensified and incorporated plenty of hand gestures.

  "Sim. La Iglesia de Buen Viaje is favored among sailors." He inclined his head to them. "Good luck to you."

  David tipped his hat. "Thank you, capitão."

  Arriaga looked both ways and darted across the street before a volanta driver could make a target of him. The rate exchange had quieted. Victory in his posture, Jacques beckoned them aboard. The Spaniard, sullen, loaded their gear, including the parasol, atop the carriage, then cut west on a side street before trotting the volanta north.

  Despite the stink, Jacques poked his head out the window often to look around. Sophie longed to gawk, too, but it wasn't the action of a black-veiled lady. It surprised her how much she did experience of Havana from inside the volanta, especially when wood smoke or the scent of a bakery managed to rise above the reek. Peasants plodded past leading mules laden with baskets of yucca and papaya. Vendors hawked their wares. Spanish soldiers in white patrolled the streets. Verdant foliage and scarlet flowers proliferated. All in all, Havana made Cuba seem a land of clear green and burning crimson.

  Nearer their destination, packs of black-robed ecclesiastics roamed Calle Obispo, and merchants swarmed Calle O'Reilly, the business hub of the city. The absence of women on the streets, even whores, reminded Sophie of David's lecture about the place of women in Catholic countries. The house and offices of the Marqués de Arcos were located near a plaza dominated by a massive cathedral. From the volanta's parking place out front, Sophie could see the north city walls and a guard tower.

  Jacques inquired inside for Don Antonio. Sophie and David listened to enticing songs of tropical birds. An intermittent breeze chased off flies and cooled the inside of the volanta. Church bells pealed another quarter hour before the Frenchman returned scowling. He yanked open the carriage door, ordered the driver to the Church of Saint Teresa, stomped inside, and slammed the door. The volanta jolted into motion, and he flopped onto the seat next to David. "Disorganized, inefficient Spaniards."

  David cocked an eyebrow. "Don Antonio wasn't in?"

  "Non. We just missed him. I spent most of my time inside waiting for someone to inform me that he had returned to his mansion near Plaza del Cristo. As it is not far from the Church of Saint Teresa —"

  "— why not visit the church before calling on him?"

  "Mais oui."

  "After all, there must be some reason Esteban Hernandez directed us to his uncle's home instead of the church."

  "Some reason, indeed." A nasty smile pinched Jacques's face. "And why not give those mongrels following us just as high a volanta fare as we are incurring?"

  Sophie gasped. "We're being followed?" The nagging in her instincts ratcheted up to a wail.

  David grinned at Jacques and gestured behind them. "It's the volanta with the brown trim, right?"

  Jacques mirrored his grin. "You have sharp eyes."

  "A skill acquired when one has rivals."

  Sophie's glance skittered between the men. "What can we do about our pursuit?"

  David settled back in his seat. "They'll reveal their intent soon enough."

  The trip south took nearly twenty minutes. They stopped twice for farmers herding cattle and pigs across the narrow, cobbled Calle San Ignacio. During the time, Jacques coached Sophie and David on passing for Catholics and explained what they could expect from the interior of a Catholic church.

  Before their own volanta pulled up in front of Iglesia de Santa Teresa on Calle Brasil, their pursuit turned off. Alert, the trio entered the cool, musty dimness of the nave through a handsome doorway bearing curvilinear ornamentation. The remnants of incense from the Sexte office tickled Sophie's nose. Sunlight filtered through stained glass and splotched cobalt, scarlet, and saffron across the shadowy shapes of a dozen parishioners praying in dark wooden pews. Along the sides, small, squat candles flickered on saints' altars. Near the main altar, light from larger candles softened the motions of acolytes. Murmurs in Spanish and Latin reached her ears, as did the click of wooden rosary beads.

  David sat in a pew at the back. Jacques led Sophie to the middle of the nave, where she slid into a pew and settled onto her knees. The black veil shaded her face and caressed her cheeks. Jacques slid into a pew near the altar and knelt.

  Eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she glanced over the parishioners, mostly women in black veils. In the pew ahead, an idiot with unkempt gray hair rocked himself. Pity prodded her. Another man five pews forward rose from near a veiled woman and stepped to the aisle.

  She gaped, and her heart hammered. It was Will St. James!

  So they had seen him aboard the Annabelle. He was alive! Love, heartache, and relief flooded her eyes. She blinked back the tears. Not yet.

  David was studying sputtering candles to the right. She stared at Jacques, willing him to turn around, but the Frenchman remained facing forward. In exasperation and panic, she sat back and scooted across the pew toward the side, freezing when Will slid into the third pew in front of her, a couple of feet from another woman. He was approaching every black-veiled woman in the church for his contact. Sophie fought back a burst of laughter and knelt again. Well, then, let him come to her.

  Very soon, he stood. Now David was contemplating archangels carved into the beams. She relaxed, reached in her left pocket, and withdrew her father's wedding band. The pew quivered, accepting his weight, and the idiot in the pew ahead rocked faster. Will scooted over within two feet of her and murmured, "Saint Augustine, deliver my immortal soul from sin."

  Was that some kind of code greeting or password? She muttered, "I'd as soon deliver your infernal hide to the redcoats for printing those broadsides."

  "Sophie!" Will managed to hold his voice to a whisper, even as he gripped her extended hand. She slid the ring into his palm, not daring to look straight at him for losing her composure. He fumbled the ring on and emitted a ragged sigh. "Good gods, my child, what are you doing here?"

  "Jacques, David, Mathias, and I are trying to give the emeralds to you or Dusseau so we can exit this nightmare." Her attention caught on the idiot. Had he moved closer?

  "Hernandez's emeralds?"

  "Sí — er, yes. He's dead."

  "And he gave you his stones? He never permitted us to touch them!"

  So Hernandez had lied when he told them the bribe was split between three couriers. How much of his story had been truth? "To give to Don Alejandro, he said."

  "Dear gods, not to him, you mustn't —"

  "We won't. We're giving them to you instead. Where's André Dusseau?"

  "Outside. Staying out of sight."

  She sucked in a breath of alarm. The idiot was, by then, sitting only about three feet to the left of Will. "Uncle Jacques has them. He's up in that front pew. Go quickly."

  "We don't want those emeralds, and good gods, I cannot believe all of you have risked your lives for this spider's web of double-crossing Spaniards —"

  With a shriek, she shoved away from him just as the "idiot" swung around, candlelight glinting on polished steel in his hand. The dagger of El Serpiente embedded in the wooden back of the pew above where Will's heart had been not a second before.

  Women screeched. Acolytes at the altar gawked. Will backhanded El Serpiente, knocking him onto the pew and sending his wig askew. Then Will bolted toward an exterior door near the altar. Sophie clambered for the aisle at the opposite end of the pew. The assassin leaped the pew and raced for her.

  More women screamed. Men shouted. David lunged up the aisle for her, and Jacques sprinted back, a snarl of protection on his face.

  Daylight pierced the nave, the front door opened by severa
l Spanish soldiers. El Serpiente vaulted over a couple of pews and sprinted for the exit taken by Will. Black-veiled women hemmed in the soldiers, each wailing in Spanish about having her widowly virtue threatened by a horde of pirates with cutlasses.

  A priest emerged from a door behind the altar and hustled down the aisle toward the soldiers and women, indignation on his face. David and Jacques seized Sophie's arms and marched her past the knot of panic, out the front door and gates, into their waiting volanta. Jacques's voice whipped out at the driver. "¡A la casa del Don Antonio Hernandez — rápidamente!" The Frenchman banged the door shut. The volanta sped out into the street.

  Sophie pushed away Jacques's offer of brandy. "I mustn't dull my wits. Give me a moment to calm down."

  The snarl erupted on his face, and he shook his fist. "Five seconds more, and I would have wrung that assassin's neck."

  David's snarl looked just as menacing. "What, and deny me the pleasure?"

  "Both of you be quiet and listen!" She steadied her breathing. "To misquote the Bard, 'Something is rotten in Havana.' Father is alive, and he was back there in the church, but he doesn't want the emeralds. He was appalled that Hernandez told us to take them to Don Alejandro. But he was neither surprised nor upset to hear that Hernandez was dead."

  The volanta squealed to a halt before the private entrance of Don Antonio's tree-shrouded mansion near the city's west wall. Sophie's gaze roved across to a church on the Plaza del Cristo: La Iglesia Santo Cristo, where Arriaga had spoken of visiting. A French sailor entered at the front door after crossing himself.

  The gate at Hernandez's private entrance opened to reveal four large, liveried slaves, who marched to the door of the volanta, opened it, and stepped aside, waiting. David's tone lacked emotion. "This is finally beginning to make sense in a very twisted way." Twisted, Sophie considered, as in a spider's web of double-crossing Spaniards.

  They exited the volanta. Three other carriages were parked before the mansion. Jacques ordered their driver to wait. While one slave shut the carriage door, the others made sure Sophie, David, and Jacques were unarmed before gesturing them to the gate. All four slaves accompanied them within.

  Jacques lowered his voice. "I have a theory about Hernandez's shooting."

  David nodded. "I wager I have the same theory."

  "El Serpiente had no accomplice on that part of the road. He could not have shot both Hernandez and his horse."

  David muttered, "He had an accomplice of sorts — someone who shot Hernandez because he'd discovered Hernandez had betrayed him and his fellow traveler to Casa de la Sangre Legítima."

  Disbelief swirled through Sophie's soul. "Father or Dusseau." Hernandez's pistol shot at the abandoned trading post north of Darien had been meant for her, not the assassin. "And the emeralds aren't a bribe. They're a lure."

  David whispered, "Yes, a lure for those who are in bed with the French. I wonder, do the Gálvez actually have stakes in this game? Did they send this Alejandro person? Are they entangled with Casa de la Sangre Legítima? Or do the Gálvez know nothing of the scheme, and Casa de la Sangre Legítima is merely borrowing their name?"

  Jacques rubbed his hands together and kept his voice low. "We will learn soon enough, as it appears we now have an interview with the Rightful Blood. I suggest that we begin by playing the innocents, although in truth, I have not much faith that all the innocents in heaven weigh enough to tilt the odds in our favor."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A CHAMBERLAIN LED them across marble floors past an office with a mahogany escritorio to a patio at least twenty-five feet wide surrounded by galleries, balconies, and iron railings. In the courtyard jungle of tropical foliage and flagstone, they waited, the four slaves unobtrusive but present, enough sunlight piercing the overhanging branches to shadow the perimeter.

  A trim, aristocratic man in his fifties entered with a younger noble. Both wore powdered periwigs. They scrutinized the travelers, dark eyes communicating half an eon of nobility. Even wearing the fine veil, Sophie, in her coarse petticoat, jacket, and mobcap, had never felt more out of place.

  "I am Don Antonio Hernandez. You have business with me?"

  "Jacques le Coeuvre." The Frenchman bowed. "David St. James. Sophie Barton. We bring word of your nephew, Esteban Hernandez. We apologize for being the bearers of ill news. He was killed in the Georgia colony two weeks ago."

  Don Antonio showed no interest. He wasn't just toughing out bad news. Rather, it wasn't news.

  "Before he died, he begged us to deliver the contents of his saddlebags to you, his uncle. We altered our travel plans to accommodate his request." Jacques extended the saddlebags. "Here is your nephew's property."

  The younger Spaniard's eyes glittered. Expression harsh, Don Antonio signaled a Negro to retrieve the saddlebags. After a glance inside and whispered instructions from his master, the slave left with the saddlebags. Don Antonio's eyes iced. "You murdered Esteban."

  Sophie stiffened. It looked as though the three of them would be allowed no leverage in the matter and must finish out a futile script. Jacques kept his voice even, although she knew he and her brother were also shocked. "We did not. Had we done so, would we have brought you his property?"

  "Yes, if it availed you of the opportunity to murder Don Alejandro de Gálvez." He looked at his companion.

  Silence wrung the patio while the travelers regarded Don Alejandro, the impersonator. The time for playing innocents was over. David lifted his chin. "See here. We are neutrals in the American War. We set out three weeks ago from the Georgia colony to track down our father's murderer. We found your nephew on the road, badly wounded, and tried to make him comfortable.

  "Since then we've come through a tropical storm and assaults by madmen to honor his final request and deliver his property to you because we have integrity. Yet you cannot even thank us for our trouble. No, you accuse us of murder most foul. Well, please, don't let us take up any more of your time."

  "Señor St. James, we all know your father and André Dusseau are alive, so cease the play. Where are they?" Sarcasm twitched Don Antonio's lips. "They were to have met Don Alejandro."

  David's card playing expression slid into place. "We haven't seen my father in weeks."

  "Where is the half-breed Creek Indian?"

  Damnation. Someone had preceded them with news not only of Esteban Hernandez's death but also with intimate knowledge of their party. Jacques's tone was subdued. "My nephew was washed overboard during the storm." Sophie heard tears in his voice and lowered her gaze to the patio in pretense of grief. "He was like a son to me. You are also an uncle. I did not understand why you showed no grief at the announcement of your nephew's death. It is clear to me now that someone brought the news prior to our arrival."

  Dry-eyed, Don Antonio sniffed. "A Continental frigate pursued you aboard the Gloria Maria. Marines from the frigate arrived here two days ago with news of Esteban's death. They conclude — and I agree with them — that you murdered him."

  Eight men in the green uniforms of Continental marines emerged from shadowy foliage around the patio and surrounded them. Cotton-mouthed, Sophie clutched David's hand.

  This was horrendous, the world turned upside down.

  Don Antonio's sneer deepened. "They will place you under arrest and take you back to the Colonies for execution, for attempting to obstruct a meeting between the Gálvez and couriers of General Washington. Capitán Carlton, please join us and apprehend your prisoners."

  A Continental marine captain stepped from a doorway hidden by foliage. His carriage, even in the shade, was so familiar that terror blossomed in Sophie's gut. Daylight shone like fire in his russet hair, and that appalling angelic radiance consumed his face.

  "General Washington thanks you for your assistance, my lords." Victory and delight fueled Dunstan Fairfax's smile. "Indeed, the general has a noose for each and every traitor."

  Jacques voice roared across the patio. "That man is Lieutenant Dunstan Fairfax, a Briton!
You have been deceived!"

  Fairfax rolled his eyes at Don Antonio with an I-told-you-so expression. The Spaniard shook his head. "The papers identifying the capitán and his mission are in perfect order, as are those for his men. You three have no identification."

  Sophie didn't recognize the men with Fairfax and had no idea how he'd obtained such papers. Stolen? Forged? What happened to the soldiers from Alton? How had Fairfax found recruits for what was essentially a suicide mission? Where was Edward? Perhaps no forgery was needed, and it wasn't a suicide mission, because Don Antonio was in bed with Britain from the start.

  David voiced his theory. "The frigate wasn't the only ship chasing us. Lieutenant Fairfax's warship, the Zealot, was also in pursuit. The frigate and warship were less than a mile apart when the storm caught us. The redcoats may have gained control of the frigate and appropriated uniforms and commission papers —"

  "In the midst of a tropical storm, Señor?" Don Antonio snickered. "Do you realize how mad that sounds?"

  "Uniforms and documents may be stolen, falsified." David swept a circle in the air with one hand. "You've been deceived. The redcoats have set a trap for all of you!"

  From the set of Don Antonio's jaw, his mind was made up. Fairfax gestured to the marines. "Take them."

  Derision contorted Jacques's face. "I will be damned to hell before the get of an English whore and a poxy sheep takes me prisoner, English pig." He spat.

  Sophie gasped. "Uncle Jacques, no!"

  Fairfax looked up from spittle smudging the shine on his black boot to the Frenchman, and his face emptied of expression. "Don Antonio, you're a man of distinguished birth. Before I remove the spies, grant me the opportunity to seek redress for the slur inflicted on my family name just now."

  "Of course, capitán."

  "Shall we dispense with it here on the patio, Monsieur?"

  "With pleasure, pig."

  "You issue the challenge. I select the means." Fairfax turned to Don Antonio. "May we have the use of your pistols?"

  "Oh, gods," whispered David. Had Fairfax selected swords, he'd have conveyed his intent to be satisfied at drawing blood only. But Fairfax was finished with Jacques.