The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  Jack spun around with a wide grin and a wag of his brows. “More than charm put the smile on your mistress’s face.”

  “I swear t’ Christ, lad.” Sally gave him her fiercest redheaded, cutty-eye glare, pointing the tip of her carving knife toward his nether region. “If I find yiv caused our Annie a moment’s grief, I’ll slice off yer tallywags and shove ’em one by one down yer gullet.”

  “And if I were to commit such a crime, I would expect nothing less, Sal.”

  Taking off in a run, Jack bounded onto the table, grabbed a tree limb and swung onto the top of the wall. He turned and blew a kiss up to Anne, and in one leap disappeared.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In short, Independence is the only BOND that can tye and keep us together.

  THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense

  Thursday, June 19, 1777

  Closing Time, at the Crown and Quill

  SALLY urged the last customers out the front door, and spied the two-horse cariole turning onto the narrow lane. She called to Anne, “The coach is here!” then ran halfway up the stairs and shouted, “Captain Blankenship! Yer transport has arrived!”

  A few moments later, the three dragoons came trouncing down, dressed in their brilliant regimentals—helmets polished, death’s-heads glaring, swords agleam.

  “Och! Verra braw, yiz are, gentlemen.” Sally fanned her face with fingers. “Nothing like a cavalryman in full feather t’ set a lass’s heart aflutter.”

  Wemyss sucked in his gut, Stuart puffed out his scrawny chest, and Blankenship searched the room for Anne. “Where’s your mistress, Sally?”

  Sally cupped hands to mouth, shouting, “Annie! The captain’s askin’ after ye!”

  Anne came scurrying out of the kitchenhouse, red-faced, straightening her ink-stained mobcap with one hand, digging in the pocket of her brown work skirt with the other. Arm outstretched, she offered the front door key to Edward Blankenship. “As Sally and I will no doubt be fast asleep on your return . . .”

  “Don’t forget to leave the door unbolted, Miss Sally,” Wemyss reminded. “Lest we be forced to scale the walls . . .”

  “Scale the walls!” Stuart laughed. “I’ll be happy to see you scale your bed unaided.”

  The officers were on their way to a gala event being hosted by General Howe at the headquarters established at Mount Pleasant—the expansive Beekman Estate on the East River—a full hour’s carriage ride up the Post Road.

  Edward slipped the key inside his pocket and took Anne by the hands. “I wish you would change your mind and come along. Run up and put on that pretty blue dress—I’ll have the coachman wait . . .”

  Anne pulled her hands free, and took a step back. “Edward, you know I’m committed to running the press tonight. This maiden job is crucial to re-establishing my printing business, and I must watch and ward over these new journeymen I’ve managed to hire.”

  The three dragoons turned and eyed the two men clad in leather aprons at work assembling a small engraving press at the back of the shop.

  “The wee nyaff with the blue specs is an oddling, Mrs. Merrick.” Stuart tapped his temple with his forefinger. “Two bricks shy of a load . . . if you ken my meaning . . .”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Stuart,” Anne declared. “The man is of very good substance—why, he’s a Quaker.”

  The little man pushed his spectacles to the top of his head, and said, very loud, “Actually, mistress, I am a Deist . . . but I can assure you, I am in possession of all my ‘bricks.’ ”

  “Please mind your tongue, Lieutenant,” Anne whispered. “Reliable journeymen are few and far between . . .”

  “Your other man—the squinty-eyed fellow—I’d say he bears watching,” Wemyss warned. “The rogue has a thievish look about him.”

  “Is that the coachman calling?” Sally exhibited her closing-time prowess. Linking arms with the two lieutenants, she hustled them out the door before Tully could cull up any umbrage to the lieutenant’s astute observation.

  Anne led the captain by the hand. “Enjoy the gala, Edward . . .”

  “An impossible task, without you by my side.” Planting a lingering kiss to Anne’s palm, Blankenship climbed into the cariole.

  The women stood out on the lane, smiling, waving and calling, “Farewell! ” as the hired carriage rolled away. The very second it disappeared around the corner onto Dock Street, they scurried back into the shop. Sally slammed the door shut and shot the three brass bolts home. Anne closed the drapery and shouted, “All clear.”

  Jack came out of the kitchenhouse, doling out a belly rub to a very complacent Bandit, who was cradled legs-up in his arms. Titus followed after, munching on a triangle of shortbread. Anne marched to the back of the shop wiping her just-kissed palm to her skirt.

  “Let’s get to work . . . we’ve not a moment to spare.”

  Tully slipped off the leather apron he wore and handed it to Titus. “How much time d’ ye think we have, missus?”

  “They won’t be back for at least six hours—perhaps seven, if the punch flows free and their luck holds at the faro table.”

  Jack set Bandit on his feet. “Sally, do you have a little something these boys can call supper?”

  “Och! I’ve lashins and lavins . . . Take a seat and I’ll bring yiz all a bite to eat.”

  “Aye that, Sal.” Tully grinned. “High treason is best committed on a full belly.”

  The four men took seats around a pair of tables shoved together, and Anne helped Sally dish up a quick supper of fish chowder served with slabs of dense brownbread, butter and jam. While the men ate, Anne leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, eyeing with a measure of wonder the strange apparatus assembled at the back of her shop. She had not even known of its existence until Titus unearthed it from the deepest depths of the closet beneath the stair—and there it sat, the machine they would use to commit the felonious act that, if caught, would earn them all a dance beneath the gibbet.

  “Mr. Mulligan is very lucky, Jack, that you’re not one to bear a grudge . . .” Anne said. “I doubt he could have found anyone else to operate that contraption.”

  The engraving press was quite different from the more common letterpress she was accustomed to. The device was equipped with a moveable bed, which carried plate and paper between a pair of heavy mahogany rollers, and was worked by turning a large wheel, much like the helm on a three-masted brigantine.

  Parker’s Press, where Jack had apprenticed and earned his journeyman status, had been outfitted with such a press that was used mostly for printing illustrations and maps. Jack reassured them all, and the engraver concurred, the difficulty in engraved printing lay in producing the copper plate. “And we are rich in this regard”—Jack and Titus tapped tankards of cider in toast—“for our ever-thinking Quaker has created not one, but two master works for our use.”

  Twilight loomed, and the counterfeiting crew could not afford to dillydally over their meal. Titus hung a series of oil lanterns to illuminate the press and compositor’s table. Sally arranged ladderback chairs in a semicircle around the fireplace to serve as makeshift racks. Tully brought in a supply of wood and kindled a fire on the hearth to speed the drying process. The Quaker cut two hundred foolscap-sized sheets in half, and put the paper to soak in a large pan filled with clear water from the cistern.

  Anne stood at the compositor’s table preparing an inkball. She stuffed fluffy wool into the bulbous leather cover, and hammered home the tacks securing it to the wooden handle—all the while covertly watching Jack as he made the final adjustments to the press.

  What a fine-looking man he is . . .

  Every night since that first night when he’d climbed into her garret window, Jack had come flying across rooftops to share her bed, and the knowance they had of one another was built upon whispers and caresses in the dark. It was a different sort of pleasure—seeing Jack in the bright lantern light, happy amid the tools of his trade.

  Like the day he’d first kis
sed her beneath the portico of St. Paul’s, Jack was dressed in plain journeyman’s garb—leather breeches, his linsey shirt open at the collar and protected by a leather apron, sleeves rolled to elbows. She admired the tight muscles in his forearms, bunching and twisting as he worked the wrench, his expressive brows furled in concentration, calibrating the space between the rollers to the perfect degree. Anne had touched every square inch of his hard body, but she only just now noticed the slight scar below his left eye, and she longed to swipe back the loose strand of hair escaped from the hasty queue he’d tied round with a length of twine snatched from the ream of paper. Handsome features tinged by the blue-black of a two-day beard lent him a rakish countenance Anne could only equate with the words daring and courage, and the wanton recollection of that rough, unshaven cheek scraping along the tender skin of her inner thigh sent a warm thrill spiraling up her spine.

  Anne set the inkball aside, and pleated a sheet of paper into a fan to cool her sudden blush. Jack Hampton required no silver trim or fancy plumage to enhance his tall, strong form, and the very sight of him kindled a fire in her heart that burned beyond the bounds of all reason.

  Jack put the wrench down and gave the big wheel a turn, his soft brown eyes intent on the motion of the rollers. Satisfied with the result, he came around and joined her at the composing table. Pressing a hand to the small of her back, he smiled and planted a soft peck on her cheek.

  “So, my little devil, are you ready for your next lesson?”

  Anne sighed. “Oh, yes.”

  Jack took up the spouted tin vessel Tully had diverted from a shipment destined for Rivington’s Press, and drizzled a syrupy stream onto the inkblock, coating the bottom surface with a thin layer. “First we ink the plate.”

  The engraved copper plate was lying on a thick pad of newsprint, centered on the composing table. He situated the inkblock to his left, agitating the viscous substance with the spatulalike steel. To the right of the plate, he stacked two dozen quarter-yard swaths of tarlatan gauze he had folded into hand-sized pads. Next to the tarlatan he placed a small bowl of powdered chalk.

  “You must be thorough in beating the ink into the etched lines.” Jack coated the leather ball with sticky ink and daubed it to the engraved copper plate. “Just as in working a letterpress, proper inking is crucial to achieving a quality impression.” Using the broad blade on the steel, he scraped the surplus ink off the plate, and took up a pad of the coarse, loosely woven gauze. “Apply the tarlatan with a light hand.” He demonstrated, carefully wiping the face of the plate with small circular motions—cleaning the plate, but leaving the incised lines filled with ink.

  “And then the final step . . .” Jack dipped the heel of his left hand into the bowl of chalk, clapping the excess away. “Mind—only a touch of chalk is required.” He swiped his powdered palm across the face of the plate twice to remove any filmy ink residue remaining. “The handwipe ensures a bright result.”

  Anne picked up the plate by the edges. “Let’s press a sheet and see how it pleases us.”

  “Gather round, mates, and see how it’s done.” Jack waved them all to the press. “With two plates, we will work in turn—while one plate is being run through the press, the other plate is being inked. With diligence, we will have three hundred impressions by midnight—three thousand pounds!”

  “You and Mrs. Anne should ink the plates,” Titus suggested. “Tully and I can work the wheel. Sally and the Quaker will see to maintaining a ready supply of paper, and to the drying of the finished bills.”

  Anne laid the inked plate upon the press bed, faceup. Titus positioned a sheet of damp paper square over the plate. Jack piled three thick layers of felt atop paper and plate. Tully turned the wheel, and the bed moved forward. The entire assemblage—plate, paper and felt—was wrung between the heavy rollers, squeezing the page to the incised design on the plate. Once through the wringers, Sally removed the felts, and the Quaker carefully peeled the paper free.

  They all gathered around the compositor’s table while Jack examined the finished ten-pound note with a magnifying glass. “Without flaw!” he proclaimed. “Let’s get busy.”

  The team fell into working in concert, keeping the flow of inked plate, paper and press constant, turning out notes with such speed, Sally and the Quaker resorted to stringing a line across the width of the room, and hanging the wet pages with clothes pegs. Before the midnight hour tolled, over three hundred impressions had been struck.

  “A good night’s work!” Jack proclaimed. “Let’s tidy up.”

  Sally rotated the few still-damp sheets closer to the heat of the fire. Tully gathered the few wasted and spoiled sheets and fed them to the flames. Anne and Jack cleaned the plates and the tools with a wash of turpentine, while Titus and the Quaker stacked the dry notes on the press, inspecting each through a glass for quality.

  “Once trimmed and forged with the bankman’s signature, it will take a better eye than mine to discern counterfeit from genuine.” Titus slapped the Quaker on the back, knocking him a step forward. “You are a man of uncommon talent.”

  Jack agreed. “Our success has exceeded my hope, due in large part to the Quaker’s skilled engravings.”

  The Quaker blushed and mumbled, and began to dig in his breast pocket, unearthing a leathern flask. “Armagnac,” he said. “May I propose a toast to our mutual endeavor?”

  “French brandy?” Tully rasped, throwing an enthusiastic arm about the engraver’s shoulders. “We have ourselves a wet Quaker!”

  “But I’m not a Quaker, wet or dry . . .”

  Sally set six teacups out on the press, and the meticulous engraver distributed equal amounts of brandy into each, emptying his flask. He raised his cup high.

  “I am a simple man—I lack a voluble tongue, and am not prone to flam or gasconade—but I will adventure to say this, my dear friends . . .” He gazed about the table, his eyes bright with pride. “Man or woman, there is not a faint heart among you. May justice support what courage has gained! Here’s to Liberty and these United States of America!”

  “Hear! Hear!” Titus and Tully pounded fists to the press.

  “To liberty!” Jack tapped his teacup to the Quaker’s.

  Anne and Sally aped the men, and to the cheers of their fellows, the women tossed back their spirits in one gulp along with much coughing and sputtering.

  Tully began to douse the lanterns. “We best jump ship afore the bloodybacks come home and spoil our party.”

  Anne took a broom to the floor, and Jack stored the tools and paraphernalia. The Quaker wrapped the copper plates in a soft cloth, and slipped them into his jacket pocket. Sally packed three thousand pounds’ worth of banknotes into a wooden box.

  Titus and Tully were charged with delivering both the crate of counterfeits and the Quaker to the Thimble and Shears, where they would spend the rest of the night trimming the notes to size while the engraver added the finishing touch, forging the bankman’s signature with red ink.

  “I’ll meet you at Mulligan’s within the hour,” Jack promised, bidding the men good-bye. Sally checked up and down the lane and determined Titus, Tully and the engraver might egress safely via the front door, rather than deal with getting the Quaker and the cash up and over the garden wall.

  Holding the last lit lantern aloft, Jack came back to methodically pace the floor, checking for any printed notes that might have gone astray. “We can’t afford to be careless . . .”

  “Well, I’m to bed.” Sally yawned. She unbolted the front door, left a lit candle on the newel post and headed up the stair. “Dinna tarry overlong, you two. The Redcoat bastards can be back at any moment.”

  “Don’t worry, Sal.” Anne paused in working her broom. “I’ll be up as soon as I finish the sweeping.”

  “Aye.” Sally nodded, and winked. “Finish yer sweepin’ . . .”

  As Sally’s footfalls faded, Jack set the lantern on the press, and removed his apron. “Sal’s right, Annie, we’ve no time to tarr
y.” Smile wide, he opened his arms. “‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may . . .’ ”

  “You do know how to recite pretty poetry!” Anne laughed, putting her broom aside. She pulled the mobcap from her head, let her careless hair fall to her waist and skipped into the wonder of his embrace. Slipping her hands beneath his loose shirt, she pressed her ear to his heart. “Stay the night . . .” she whispered. “Titus will see to finishing the notes . . .”

  Jack kissed the top of her head. “We need all hands at work to finish the notes in time for the meeting with Patsy’s quartermaster tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be very glad when we’re done with this business. I’m grown weary of deception, tired of worrying and heartily sick of paying court to Redcoats.” Anne heaved a sigh. “I just want to be with you . . .”

  Jack found her lips with a warm and tender kiss. “After Friday, I will carry you away from here and we will be together always.”

  Anne leaned over and blew out the lantern. But for the candle Sally left behind on the stair, the shop was thrown into darkness. Her hands against his chest, Anne pressed forward two paces, pushing Jack back against the composing table. “Stay . . .” Her bold finger blazed a zigzagging path, connecting the two rows of buttons securing his drop-front breeches.

  Jack grabbed her by the wrists as she undid the first few buttons. “Annie . . . there’s no time . . . the dragoons are due back . . . we can’t . . .”

  “We can! We’ve plenty of time . . .” She twisted free from his halfhearted grasp, and slipped a questing hand inside his breeches. “They won’t be back for an hour, at least.”

  Jack groaned, and grabbed her round the waist. Lifting and spinning around in one motion, he set Anne atop the engraving press. Their lips met in a fervent kiss, while Anne pulled at her skirts, and Jack pushed through the fabric.

  Grabbing hold of Jack ’s shoulders, Anne dug her fingers into the recesses where taut muscle met hard bone. Big, strong hands found soft, round hips—pulling her forward as he pushed inward—and they joined as one.