"It will happen," Rebekah said with a gentle smile as she took Aaron from his cradle and prepared to nurse him. Emilie fled before the woman could say any more.
#
Emilie found a shady spot beneath an old maple tree and settled down with the mending a few minutes later. Her fingers shook as she unfolded the man's shirt and searched for the worn spots in need of repair. Rebekah was a practical woman and she was seeing to it that her husband's garments were in perfect shape for his return.
This had to be the strangest day she'd had since this whole adventure began. First Rebekah told her that Andrew loved her and now Rebekah asked if she might be pregnant. It was enough to make Emilie throw her hands in the air and flee.
Which, it occurred to her, was exactly what it seemed Zane had done.
This was probably the longest period of time he'd ever spent in one place since he was in diapers. In another week or two his arm would be healed and she wouldn't hazard a guess what course of action he would take after that.
He still talked about finding his way back to their old lives. She'd caught him once, drawing designs in the dirt with a stick. "Our escape hatch," he'd said when she asked what he was doing.
Obviously he was still unable to accept the reality of their situation. For all she knew he was out scouring the countryside in search of a wicker gondola and a few thousand square yards of silk.
"Rebekah told me I would find you here."
Emilie jumped, pricking herself with the steel needle. "Andrew!" She popped her finger into her mouth, and looked up at him. "You snuck up on me."
He squatted down next to her. "I have not heard that expression before."
She grinned. "Consider yourself lucky. We've done terrible things to the language in my time. You would be appalled."
"Yesterday you told Rutledge that his socks would be knocked off by Rebekah's apple betty. I spent much time trying to envision that occurrence but came up wanting."
"It's slang," she said, noting the touch of green in his hazel eyes. "Common talk."
"What does it mean?"
She thought for a moment. "Overwhelmed, but in the best possible way."
"And if the situation was dire?"
"You'd be bummed out," said Emilie. "Of course that only applies if you're a surfer--or from California."
He looked at her blankly. "Those words mean nothing to me."
"California is the state that curves along the western coast. They found gold there in 1849 and that really put it on the map." She told him about the perfect climate, the perfect beaches, and the perfect specimens who rode the waves.
"A man stands on a wooden board and sails through the waves?"
"Women do it, as well."
"This world of yours," he said, sitting down a few feet away from her. "Rutledge would sell his soul to Beelzebub to return but you--" He stopped abruptly.
"I don't seem to care if I go back. You're right. I don't." There. She'd said it. She hadn't intended to, but now that she'd given voice to the words she felt as if she'd crossed into alien territory.
"I do not understand. All the wonders you've left behind." He shook his head in bewilderment.
"We've told you only about the wonders, Andrew. There is much wrong in our time. Many people fear that the earth will not survive our stewardship."
The world he knew was one of bounty, of clear skies and clean water. She tried to explain the differences to him but when she came to garbage dumps the size of mountains he started to laugh.
"Forget it," she said, laughing too. "What difference does it make? Maybe it will never happen."
"But you have seen them with your own eyes, have you not?"
"I've also seen myself pulled back two centuries through time. Who knows what else is possible?"
"You are unlike any woman I have ever known, lass."
"Given the circumstances, I'd have to agree." She tried to sound bright and breezy, the opposite of the way she felt.
"You are so full of life, so strong and--"
"Andrew." She placed a hand on his forearm. "Please don't."
He placed a rough hand over hers. "I cannot stop, lass. There is so much I have to say and I fear that time is my enemy."
She made to withdraw her hand but he would not allow it. "Andrew, you must believe it is just the circumstances that make you feel this way. It has nothing to do with me."
"It has everything to do with you."
"We shouldn't be talking like this."
"Do you love him still?"
"Andrew!"
"'Tis a logical question."
"We're divorced," she said. "Whatever existed between us is long gone." It was less than the truth but not quite a lie.
It was also the best she could do.
"He abandoned you and still you are friends. I find it easier to comprehend a man walking on the moon."
"The truth is a little more complicated than that." She hesitated. "Actually I walked out on Zane, not the other way around."
"Do not try to shield him."
"Andrew, I'm not trying to shield him. I'm telling you the truth. We wanted different things from marriage. I was very unhappy and so I left him."
"And he allowed this?"
"It's a free country," she said. "Or at least it will be in a few years."
"Did he beat you?"
"If he tried it he'd be walking funny today."
Andrew's face turned beet red. "Then why was it that you left him?"
Emilie sighed deeply. "I wanted a home. He didn't. I wanted a family. He didn't."
"You speak as if there are choices to be made. Only the Almighty can decide when a couple will start a family."
She wasn't up to a discussion on birth control. She cleared her throat and changed the subject. "Have you uncovered anything about the assassination plot?"
It took Andrew a moment to regain his emotional balance. "Nay, I have not. Our troubles have been of a more personal nature."
"Tell me." Emilie moved her needle and thread through the fabric of Josiah's shirt as Andrew told her of Fleming's disappearance, and of the arrest warrants issued against two more members of the spy ring. "And what of the messages you've been passing through to General Mercer?"
"It grows more difficult with each day." An important dispatch of a very sensitive nature had fallen into British hands two nights ago and Andrew feared the Jersey spy ring might be coming to the end of its usefulness.
Emilie watched the rhythmic motion of the sewing needle as she pulled then pushed it through the fabric of Josiah's shirt. "Maybe you're going about it wrong," she said thoughtfully. "Letters can be stolen."
"And what alternative is there, lass?"
Sunlight glittered off the silvery needle. "Embroidery," she said, meeting his eyes. "A message could be embroidered onto a garment then handed over to a courier without arousing undue interest."
Andrew frowned. "No man would wear a schoolgirl's sampler on his back."
"Not a sampler," she said. "What I'm thinking about would be tiny." Quickly she rethreaded her needle then stitched her name along the seam of the shirt.
"'Tis no bigger than a grain of rice."
"Exactly. An entire message could be embroidered beneath a collar or inside a cuff."
"Not many are skilled enough to do such work."
"I am," she said without hesitation.
His heart felt light inside his chest. Surely there was more to her eagerness than patriotic fervor.
"The thinnest floss of tan or grey will disappear...."
Her voice carried the sound of angels.
"Inside seams or on the underside of a lining...."
Her eyes flashed with the fire of priceless emeralds.
"...work clothes or uniforms or even a baby's blanket...."
Her skin smelled sweeter than the roses blooming by the front door.
She looked up at him and smiled. "I think it will be wonderful, don't you?"
"Aye, lass,"
he said, his heart soaring. "Wonderful."
Chapter Ten
"Are you going to tell Ma?"
Zane looked down at the lanky youth. "I don't know, Isaac. What do you think I should do?"
Isaac Blakelee, carrying a parcel of muslin fabric for his mother, considered the question with almost comical deliberation. "I think it should remain a secret between men."
Zane had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. The boy was still wet behind the ears. Barely fifteen years old and already burning with the righteous fires of independence, both personal and patriotic. Rebekah had sent the boy into town for fabric with strict orders to return home without delay. Isaac, however, had been unable to pass the Plumed Rooster without paying a visit.
He cleared his throat and struggled to look stern. "Next time I would avoid rum, Isaac, and stick with ale."
Zane felt better than he had in weeks. Money might not be able to buy you happiness but it went a long way toward buying a man his freedom. Those chunks of gold from his watchband had translated into a considerable stack of notes like the New Jersey three-shilling with the warning To Counterfeit is Death printed on the front. His pockets bulged with coins, most of which bore the likeness of King George II and dates in the 1740s.
If he had any doubts as to the reality of his situation, they were gone now.
He and Isaac walked together in silence for a while. Zane had been enjoying a tankard of ale in the Plumed Rooster, with the mixed clientele of farmers and Continental soldiers, when he noticed Isaac engaged in an altercation with the proprietor. The boy had been vigorously defending his father's honor, but the owner of the pub had been having none of it.
"Out with you, boy. I'll not be servin' a traitor's son."
Zane had stepped in, settled Isaac's tab, then dragged the hot-tempered teenager out into the sunshine and pointed him in the direction of home.
"Feel like talking?" he said as they waited for a coach and driver to rumble past.
Isaac shrugged his narrow shoulders. "They think my pa's a traitor but I know that ain't so."
"People say a lot of things," Zane said. "Sometimes you have to forget them."
"I can't forget my pa," the boy snapped. "Old man Carpenter's a Tory and he says my pa and the others are in jail by Little Rocky Hill and next week they're like t'be moving the lot of them up to the Hell Ship."
Zane's interest was piqued. "What's the Hell Ship?"
"Floating prisons," said Isaac. "They say Wallabout Bay's fillin' up with bodies of dead prisoners." The boy's eyes glistened with tears but he fiercely blinked them away. "We ain't got enough soldiers to stand against the Lobsterbacks. My ma's got to--"
"Forget it," said Zane. "She needs you with her, Isaac. At least until your father comes back."
"What if my pa don't come back?" the boy asked, voice trembling. "What then?"
There was, of course, no answer for a question like that, and there never would be an answer for it, at least not in either of Zane's lifetimes.
Isaac looked up at him with curiosity. "The army'd be needing lots of help. I know my pa will join sooner or later. How about you?"
"I don't think I'm military material."
"Neither's my pa, but he says you do what you can to help."
"It's something to think about." And he'd been thinking about it a lot lately as he watched McVie and the Blakelees and Emilie strive toward a goal they couldn't see or hear or touch but knew was as necessary as air and water.
He draped an arm around the kid's shoulders and they walked the rest of the way home in companionable silence.
"One of the cows has been feelin' poorly," Isaac said as they started up the lane that led to the farmhouse. "Would you give this to Ma so I can go straightaway t'the barn?"
Zane motioned for the parcel and Isaac tossed it to him.
"Much obliged," the boy said, then dashed off in the direction of the barn.
Isaac was a good kid, filled with energy and loyalty and high ideals. Zane couldn't help but wonder how life would treat him. Sooner or later Isaac would make good his threat to join the Continental Army and he found himself hoping that fate would treat the boy with kindness.
He climbed the front steps and was about to go inside when the sound of Emilie's laughter, sweet and high, drifted toward him on the heavy summer air. He glanced across the front yard, expecting to see her walking toward him.
Instead he found her sitting beneath the shade of an enormous maple tree, smiling at that damn McVie as if they shared a secret.
He placed the parcel of muslin on the porch railing then headed over to where Emilie and Andrew sat.
"Zane!" Her eyes widened as he approached. "We've been wondering where you were." She motioned for him to join them beneath the tree.
"I had some business to take care of." He looked from Emilie to Andrew and didn't like what he saw. Not one damn bit.
"Business?" Her eyes widened some more. "What business could you possibly have?"
"I'll tell you later." No way was he going to let McVie know he had a king's ransom stuffed in his pockets. He didn't trust the guy as far as he could throw him.
"Where did you go?" asked McVie.
"Princeton."
McVie looked surprised. "How was it you were able to find the town without a guide?"
Zane started to say something both profane and right on target, but Emilie leaped into the fray.
"Zane has the most amazing memory," she said brightly. "People, places, conversations--" She laughed. "It's almost scary."
No, thought Zane, what was scary was the way she looked. Edgy with excitement. Soft and beautiful and female.
"So what's going on here?" he asked. "You two looked thick as thieves."
Emilie's face reddened and she looked down at the sewing in her lap.
McVie, however, met his eyes. "Mistress Emilie has provided a way to transport messages that will greatly aid our cause."
Great, thought Zane. Next thing he knew she'd be leading a protest march at Independence Hall.
"Yeah," he said instead, "she's another Betsy Ross."
"I'll explain it to you later," Emilie said to Andrew who'd been about to ask.
"So what's the big idea or is it a state secret?"
She looked toward Andrew, who nodded. "I'm going to embroider the messages right on the messengers' clothing."
"That's it?" he asked. "Why don't you have them carry billboards while you're at it?"
"We're not stupid," she snapped. She handed him a shirt. "Take a look at this and tell me what you see."
He glanced at the garment. "Other than a hole on the elbow, nothing."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "I rest my case."
"Take careful note of the underside of the collar," McVie said. "Mistress Emilie has embroidered her name."
"I'll be damned," said Zane as he held the garment up for closer examination. "That's microscopic."
"Mi-kro-scoppik?" McVie repeated.
"Tiny," said Emilie. "And that's the point, Zane. If I use the right shade of floss, you'd only know it was there if you were looking for it."
"Great idea," he said, "but what happens once they figure it out?"
"Then we'll come up with something else," she said.
McVie was watching them both with avid interest.
"Built-in obsolescence," Zane drawled. "It's what made America great. Why not throw a few roadblocks in their way from the outset?"
"I suppose you have a brilliant suggestion."
"Damn right I do. Use a secret code."
Both Emilie and McVie burst into laughter.
"What's so funny?"
They told him that secret codes were far from a new idea.
"Sorry," said Emilie. "It just proves there's nothing new under the sun."
"Depends on the code," he said, not cracking a smile.
McVie leaned forward. "Explain."
Zane grinned. McVie was a lot of things but stupid wasn't one of them.
"What if the key to the code was unbreakable?"
"Such a thing does not exist," said McVie.
"It does if the key comes from 1992."
Emilie's sharp intake of breath was audible. McVie's attentions were directed solely on Zane.
"It doesn't matter what you use," Zane continued. "The Gettysburg Address, an old Beach Boys song. There's an endless supply and, unless I miss my bet, Emilie and I are the only people around who could break it."
"My God," said Emilie, heart pounding. "It's perfect!"
"I know," said Zane. "I thought the same thing when I first came up with the idea back in grade school."
"What song did you use?" she asked.
He grinned. "Twist and Shout. The Beatles' version."
Emilie launched into a rousing version of the old rock-and-roll hit that had McVie staring at her as if she'd grown a second head.
"Sorry," said Emilie after two verses. "I always loved that song."
"Are there many such songs?" McVie asked.
Emilie and Zane looked at each other and laughed. "Don't worry," said Emilie. "Enough to last until the end of the war."
"You have told me the resolution will be favorable to our cause," said McVie, "but will that resolution be a long time in coming?"
How did you tell a man that another five bloody years would pass before Lord Cornwallis and the British troops surrendered at Yorktown?
Emilie finally broke the awkward silence. "It will be a long time coming," was all she said.
#
Emilie was too excited to eat supper. Her stomach felt shaky, as if she'd taken one ride too many on an amusement park roller coaster. She excused herself and sat down by the window in the front room, embroidering a message into the underside of McVie's collar.
It was a simple message and a simple code. She and Zane had decided Jingle Bells was a good way to start. Zane wrote out the words for Andrew on a piece of foolscap, muttering loudly about the quill pen.
As it turned out he needn't have bothered for Andrew quickly memorized the song and they determined that each of the next three nights would key into a different stanza of the old Christmas song.
Somewhere in Time (The Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy) Page 14