The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  “Of course I believe it,” Anne countered. They stepped off the curbstone on Broad Way and crossed the cobbles to the middle of the thoroughfare. “Better to be a fool and hope for peace than a fatalist expecting nothing but mayhem, bloodshed and death.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a noodle. The time for talking peace has long passed. Didn’t you hear? Over two hundred ships were sighted rounding Sandy Hook today.” Jack stepped over the wide gutter that coursed the center of the street. “The King’s ‘peace commission’ is preceded by enough firepower to lay our city and all within to ashes several times over.” He reached out a hand to help Anne across the gutter.

  “I’m no noodle!” Anne ignored his hand and traversed the gutter unassisted. Misjudging the span in the dark, her heel slipped the edge, and she lost her balance.

  Quick to catch her around the waist—saving Anne from landing bum-end in the feculent trough—Jack took her by the hand. “Best keep close to me, alright?”

  Anne was startled by this shift to kindness. Jack’s gentle voice and her hand within his engendered a sudden, all-encompassing well-being—a feeling akin to being tucked into pan-warmed sheets on a wintry night—the wonderful, long-missed feeling of being cared for.

  It struck Anne right then—from the time it took to travel from the steps of King’s College to the gutter on Broad Way, Jack Hampton had shown her more compassion and kindness than Mr. Merrick ever had during a full seven years of marriage.

  Anne had never been foolish enough to hope for love from Peter Merrick—not the kind of passionate love she’d read about in novels anyway—but she did hold hope her marriage might at least resemble a comfortable, respectful relationship similar to the one her parents’d had. After the first few weeks, she realized even that minimum would most likely never come to pass.

  Merrick wore marriage like a hair shirt—a constant discomfort he bore as a penance in exchange for acquiring the progeny he deemed necessary to fulfill God’s will. The handful of times her husband drank enough courage to knock on her bedchamber door, their coupling was at best difficult, awkward and brief. Merrick was most relieved once Anne announced she had conceived, and never again did he cross the threshold into her room. After Jemmy’s birth, it became crystal clear she was deemed no more important than any of the other slaves and servants in her husband’s employ. Anne only managed to float along in the misery of it all, buoyed by the love she bore for her son.

  Anne held tight to Jack’s hand as he led her across the Commons toward the Presbyterian church. Looming in the dark, the steeple was an immense black finger stirring the night sky strewn with as many stars as Anne had ever seen. She could count on five fingers the number of times she’d been out walking the streets of New York after nightfall, and never before had she ever seen such a celestial display.

  The lamp warden had yet to fire any of the streetlamps on the crooked streets east of Broad Way, and the moonless night painted the narrow lanes a deep blue-black. Every so often faint scraps of laughter and conversation floated down from an open upper-story window. Wavering candle glow emanating from the same windows helped to abate a few of the sinister shadows crossing their path.

  “Watch your footing,” Jack warned. “There’s not a sliver of moonlight to see by tonight.” He chucked a stone to disperse a pack of rats swarming at the end of the block.

  Anne wished they had thought to bring a light. Marshall law and curfew had emptied the streets of humankind and opened them to all manner of four-legged nocturnal habitants. Moving shadows scurried along the peripheries with gleaming eyes blinking red and gold in the night.

  “Oh!” She stopped short, and squeezed Jack’s hand. “What was that?”

  “What?” Jack checked over his shoulder.

  “Listen.”

  They stood in the center of the lane, motionless.

  “There!” Anne clung to Jack ’s arm. “Did you hear it?”

  He didn’t answer but to pull Anne up a pair of steps and into the recessed doorway of a shuttered storefront, crowding her into a dark corner.

  Anne’s straw hat slipped from her head, the knotted ribbons pulled tight to the hollow of her throat, the crown squashed between her back and rough brick. Jack set the writing box down. The stubble on his face scraped a prickly path across her cheek as he leaned in to whisper, “Be very quiet.”

  Every manner of evil-doer could be on their path, and all the Widow Merrick could think on was the handspan of warm space redolent with lye soap, wood smoke and lavender that separated her body from this man.

  The distressing sound that had sent them into hiding drew near and distinct—leather soles slapping along tamped earth. Anne rose on tiptoes to peek over Jack ’s shoulder as two men marched by, the steel halberds on their shoulders reflecting blue in the starlight.

  “Only the sentrymen . . .” Anne sighed, and made to squirm past Jack, out to where she could catch a breath and collect her wits.

  “No—wait!” Jack braced both arms against the wall, trapping her in.

  “Wait? Wait for what?”

  “I don’t have a pass.”

  Off in the distance a dog began to bark, and Jack shuffled in closer to stand a mere thumb’s breadth away. His breath caused the loose hairs on the top of her head to flutter. If she but tipped her head slightly, she could rest her cheek on his chest. The wanton thought sent a shudder down her spine.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, lips to her ear.

  A very warm night, and this whisper raised gooseflesh on her arms “But we don’t have a . . .”

  “Shhh . . .” Jack pressed a finger to her lips. He leaned in closer—a lock of hair slipped his queue and tickled her forehead. Anne shrank back against the wall, and the sound of the sentries’ steps faded away.

  Anne gave Jack a two-handed shove. “I thought you had a pass.”

  “I forgot it.”

  “You know I have a history . . .” Her whisper was harsh. “I could be arrested . . .”

  “Right, and that’s why we need to hide whenever the sentries come ’round.”

  Anne stepped back out into the lane. “Let’s hurry, then, before they come around again.”

  Refusing the hand Jack offered, Anne walked a pace behind, happy for the dark to mask the flush she felt come to her cheeks. Untying the sweaty knot beneath her chin, she used her hat as a fan to cool her temperature, and took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart. Jack Hampton strolled ahead—la-di-da—without a care, and here she was, as fevered and faint as a silly heroine in one of her novels.

  They reached the short street on which her shop was located. Sally and Quakenbos had lit the lanterns hanging over their respective doorways, and the little lane seemed friendly and cheerful for the light. “Well,” Anne said, fiddling with the brim of her hat. “Here we are. I won’t trouble you further. Thank you for . . .”

  The writing box landed with a thump in the dirt and Jack grabbed Anne by the wrist. Her hat flew from her hand, and there was no time to retrieve it as he rushed her into the dark gangway between her shop and the Quakenbos Bakery.

  “What is it?” Anne asked. “Sentries?”

  Jack spun her around to land with her back against the brick. Pinning her wrist against the wall with his left hand, he slipped the right to wrap her rib cage. His actions so fierce and determined, Anne was stunned when he leaned in and kissed her.

  Like touching a spark to a stream of gunpowder, Jack’s kiss coursed a path through her body that struck at her very core. Rendered senseless, breathless and weak in the knees, Anne braced her free hand to Jack ’s shoulder, torn as to whether to push him away or draw him closer.

  His hand slipped up from her ribs to caress her breast. Inching forward he buried his face in her hair—Anne’s eyes snapped open—his every muscle pressed hard against her.

  “Anne?!”

  She turned to her name. David stood in the lane, dangling a lantern over his head. Sally stood beside him with the forsaken stra
w hat clutched to her breast.

  Anne shoved Jack away, and David moved in, shining a light on Jack. “Who’s this?”

  Jack stepped into the light, hand extended. “Jack Hampton—I was seeing your sister home . . .”

  “Ye were doing a bit more than that!” Sally laughed.

  David refused Jack ’s hand and turned back to his sister. “Where’ve you been? Sally and I have been worried sick . . . searching for you . . . thinking the worst . . .”

  Anne stepped out into the lane, her joints as feeble as a rag doll’s. “I-I missed curfew, and had to wait a long while for a pass. Dr. Treat’s so busy—and I knew Sally would worry—I said as much, didn’t I, Jack?”

  Jack nodded. “That she did, Sal.”

  “—so I accepted Mr. Hampton’s kind offer to escort me home—but he’d forgotten his pass . . .” Anne paused. “We had to hide from sentries—because he has no pass, you see?”

  David folded his arms across his chest. “All I see is my sister behaving no better than a common dockside whore . . .”

  “David!” Sally exclaimed.

  “That is harsh, brother.” Jack laid a hand to David’s shoulder

  “We’re not brothers.” David shrugged Jack off, handed the lantern to Sally and drew his sword from its scabbard. “You are under arrest.”

  Jack raised his hands. “C’mon, Captain. Naught but a little kiss and cuddle in the shadows . . . nothing to get up in arms about . . .”

  “David, please!” Anne said. “Put your sword away. There’s no need . . .”

  “No!” David extended his arm, the point of the blade level with Jack’s throat. “Curfew was put in practice to keep the likes of him off the streets and away from decent women. He has no pass and he will be brought to stand before the provost marshall.”

  Jack glanced at Anne and slipped his hand inside his shirt. “I do have a pass.” He handed David a folded note.

  “You see—” David waved the paper at Anne. “The rascal had a proper pass all along.”

  “I don’t understand . . .” Anne shook her head.

  “You are so gullible, Annie. Father is right. We need to see you married and settled. Tomorrow, I want you to close your shop and pack your things. I’m sending you home to Peekskill.” David sheathed his sword and handed the pass back to Jack. “Hiding from sentries—putting your virtue in peril . . .”

  “Virtue!” Anne snapped to attention and faced her brother square on. “I would advise you not to waste any worry for my virtue, David, for our father sold that years ago.” She marched to where Jack had dropped her writing box, and snatched it up by its handle. “Tomorrow, I will open my shop for business as usual. I love you dearly, little brother, but you are neither my husband nor my father. Thank God, no man holds dominion over me.” Anne turned on her heel and headed to her door.

  “Hoy, Annie!” Sally scurried to catch up. “Wait up!”

  “Good night, Anne!” Jack called.

  David turned and swept his blade up, laying the tip to Jack ’s cheek in an instant. “You will stay away from my sister.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Captain,” Jack said. “I don’t take well to orders—a problem that keeps me from joining you Regulars.”

  With an expert flick of the wrist, David nicked a small gash just below Jack ’s left eye.

  Jack backhanded the blade aside, thumbed the blood from his cheek and studied it for a moment, rubbing the stickiness between his fingertips. “Your sister has a will of her own and—I’ll warn you right now—so do I.”

  Jack turned his back to David’s blade, and headed west, retracing the path back to the room he kept right across from King’s College.

  ANNE flopped over to her back, kicked off the bedsheet and tugged at the sweat-damp muslin bunched about her hips. She bolted upright, flipped her pillow and gave it several smart whackets to encourage the feathers, before lying back again. She could not find a wink of sleep—not a wink.

  That kiss . . .

  She could not shake the memory of it. Very silly and quite sad, Anne thought. Here she was, a woman who’d married and birthed a child, and she’d just been given her first real kiss—a kiss more intimate and thrilling than anything that had ever transpired in her bedchamber with Merrick.

  Hot as Hades in here . . . Anne plucked at her shift, fanning her legs. Daylight began to keek in through the cracks of the shutters, and there was no point in even trying to fall asleep anymore. Bed-ropes creaking, Anne rolled up to a sit, swung her feet to the floorboards, stumbled to the window and pushed open the shutters.

  A fair dawning. She leaned out over the sill to catch the breeze, and there, bobbing lightly out in the harbor—a thick, dark forest of ships’ masts silhouetted against the misty sunrise.

  “Bloody hell!” she muttered.

  The fleet was in.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.

  THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense

  Monday, July 8, 1776

  Closing Time at the Sign of the Cup and Quill

  TALLY up the points, lads,” Sally called out. “It’s time t’ close it up.”

  A groan went up from Titus Gilmore and the group of soldiers clustered near the dartboard at the front of the shop.

  “Sorry, lads, curfew.” Sally collected their dirty mugs onto her tray. “For your own good as well as ours—ye ken we dinna make the rules here, we just abide by them.”

  Titus gathered the darts. “You heard the lady! Let’s tally up.”

  One of the soldiers added the marks on the chalkboard and announced the final score. Titus was declared the winner. Coins exchanged hands, the men collected their sundry caps, jackets and weapons and shuffled out onto the lane. Sally shut the door and shot the three bolts home. She turned to Titus, who dropped a stream of coins into her outstretched hand.

  “Why, I thank ye, sir.” Sally bobbed a curtsy.

  “The pleasure is all mine, miss.” Titus grinned, pocketing the rest of his winnings.

  As per agreement, Titus paid Sally a fair share to keep an eagle eye on the chalkboard and to ensure that she announced closing time at an advantageous moment.

  “The two of you . . .” Anne came in with a worn birch broom in hand, shaking her head at the wily pair.

  “Aw, there’s no harm in it, Mrs. Anne.” Titus began hoisting chairs and benches up onto the tabletops. “The shop has to close sometime, don’t it?”

  “I suppose . . .” Anne began sweeping out the dirt and clots of dried muck from beneath the tables. “I just worry you two will get caught one of these days.”

  “Not by that lot. Backcountry lads every one—they didna have a clue.” Sally jingled the coins in her pocket and danced a merry little jig, when a sudden, fearful pounding shook the door she’d only just bolted.

  With the front windows boarded, there was no telling who it might be, and Anne urged Sally, “Go on, miss—answer the door.”

  Sliding back the bolts, Sally cracked the door open a scant and very controlled inch. Quick to issue a terse—“No, not here”—she shut and rebolted the door in almost the same instant. The pounding renewed immediately, but Sally paid no heed, and began to stack dirty plates and mugs onto a tray as if nothing were amiss.

  “Who is that, Sally?”

  “Only one o’ them Virginia lads . . . wonderin’ he’d left his hat here.”

  The pounding did not abate and Titus took steps toward the door. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Anne, I’ll take care of him.”

  “No, Titus!” Wide-eyed Sally shook her head to and fro, like a terrier who’d just nabbed a rat. “Dinna bother . . . I mean, I could smell the rum on him, the sot. The man’s worse for the drink. No need to court trouble . . .”

  “Sally’s right.” Anne leaned on her broom. “No need to tangle with a drunk—all the noise he’s making, the sentries will find him soon enough.” And just as she said it, the pounding ceased. “There, you see? All’s well.”


  Anne launched into a vigorous sweeping, moving an ever-growing pile of debris from the front of the shop to the rear. She stepped out the back door to fetch the dustpan from the kitchenhouse.

  “Anne! Psssst! Anne!” Jack Hampton’s head popped up intermittently, above the six-foot-tall stone wall surrounding the garden. “Annie!”

  “What in the world?” Anne drew close. “Is that you, Jack?” She had not seen hide nor hair of the man since that night when he’d seen her home from the hospital, and she thought for sure David had succeeded in scaring him away.

  Jack leapt up and grabbed ahold of a low-slung peach tree limb, sending dozens of peaches raining down in a thumpety-thump. In another flurry of fruit, Jack swung his long legs up and over to perch atop her garden wall like a self-satisfied tomcat.

  Anne looked up at him, her arms akimbo. “I do have a door, you know. A simple device—you step through it.”

  “I tried your door, but the fierce watchdog you keep would not let me pass.”

  Sally remained inside the shop scrubbing a tabletop, very intent on avoiding Anne’s piercing eye. Titus stepped into the garden, his big arms folded across his chest.

  “Do you need any help, Mrs. Anne?”

  “It’s all right, Titus. This is Mr. Hampton, a friend of mine.”

  “May I come in, friend? I need to speak with you.” Jack leapt down at her nod, and began fumbling within his linsey workshirt.

  With eyebrows raised, Anne reached out and almost touched the scabrous wound below Jack ’s left eye. “What’s happened there?”

  Jack fingered his cheek. “Oh . . . that . . . bumped into a sword.” He resumed scrambling inside his shirt, at last pulling forth a folded piece of paper. “Here it is! I have desperate need of your press . . . We have to print as many of these as we can.”

  “My press?! My press was put to ruin . . . You yourself saw to it . . .”

  “Now, Anne, don’t play coy. There’s little enough time as is. Everyone knows Merrick’s was always a two-press shop.” Jack brushed past, and went inside.