She stared at him, feeling a hint of admiration. No wonder he was a successful spy. Anyone who wished to lead this man into a trap with words would have a difficult time doing it. “You talk like a rebel one moment and a loyalist the next. Which side of the fence do you stand on, Mr. Smith?”
“The true one, of course,” he answered smoothly, and it did not escape Katie’s notice that his answer was no answer at all. “Munro and I have been friends for a long time. Provided you don’t steal from him, I’ll let you stay.”
The arrogance of the man almost made her laugh aloud. “You will? And what say do you have in the matter?”
“More than you could imagine.” He paused and returned her stare with a long, searching glance of his own. “Andrew persuaded David to give you a job. I’m afraid he is highly susceptible to beauty in distress.”
She had the feeling he could see right through her wiles, and she did not like it. “Unlike you, of course.”
He grinned. “On the contrary, I am very appreciative of beautiful women.”
Katie continued to eye him with skepticism. “But not the sort of man to be concerned with their distress.”
“You don’t know me well enough to judge what sort of man I am, do you?” he countered softly, and rose to his feet. “You should prove adequate as a kitchen maid, provided you work as well as you talk, of course.”
“I’ll earn my keep.”
“I’m sure you will, my pretty little thief. I’ll be around often enough to see that you do.”
He turned away and left her. Alone in the kitchen, Katie wanted to laugh aloud at the quickness of her victory. She had found John Smith, and he was already playing right into her hands. How easy this had been.
Too easy. That thought brought her up sharply, and her feeling of triumph vanished as quickly as it had come. Why did he mean to take such a personal interest in her? It sounded as if he had suspicions about her. She knew if she wanted to earn her freedom, she had best watch her step with this man.
Still, she was not intimidated. She was a spy, after all, and she hadn’t agreed to be one because it was safe. John Smith was no longshoreman, she knew that well enough from her London street days. She wondered how he obtained his information, and she vowed that she would find out.
If he intended to keep an eye on her, so be it. She was going to do the same, and perhaps what she discovered would be enough to earn her freedom.
4
The following morning, Katie opened her eyes to a shadow hovering over her. Startled, she reacted instinctively, flinging out her arm with enough strength to shove the person standing over her back several feet. The sound of stumbling feet and the crash of a chair to the floor followed.
“Ouch!” a voice objected. “That hurt!”
Katie jumped out of bed, oblivious to the pain she had caused. Being surprised out of sleep by a stranger in the night was a danger she had faced the many times she’d been forced to sleep on the streets. It was not something she had expected in the kitchen of a tavern. It had startled her badly.
She fumbled for the lamp and flint on the kitchen table, and once the lamp was lit, she held it high, turning toward the stranger who had startled her.
She found herself face to face with a boy of about nine or ten, a boy she knew she’d never seen before, but his distinct resemblance to Molly told her he must be that woman’s son.
“You’re awfully jumpy, aren’t you?” he said as he bent down to rub his shin. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She wasn’t about to admit she’d been frightened by a boy. “I wasn’t scared. It’s just that you startled me. I didn’t expect to wake up with a stranger standing over me.”
The boy righted the overturned kitchen chair and plopped down onto it. He didn’t appear to feel any self-consciousness at having been caught studying her in her sleep, and he continued to regard her with unabashed curiosity. “I’m Daniel,” he said, and thrust out his hand. “My parents own this tavern. I know your name is Katie. So now we’re not strangers anymore.”
She grinned and shook his hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you. But how did you know my name? I don’t remember seeing you in the tavern last night.”
“I saw you. You came running in to hide from the Regulars. After we hid you in the back room, the redcoats left, and my father sent me to follow them so he would know if they came back for you.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Are you really a pickpocket?”
She heard the eagerness in his voice, and she had an idea of what was coming, but there was no point in lying about it, since everybody seemed to know. “I used to be.”
“But you took that soldier’s watch.” Before she could open her mouth to protest, he went on, “How do you do it? Will you show me?”
Her suspicion confirmed that he wanted to know about dipping, Katie shook her head. “I’m not sure I should. Your mother wouldn’t like it.”
“C’mon,” he entreated. “Mama won’t mind.”
Children always said that, she thought wryly, and it was never true.
She shook her head again and reached under her cot for her boots. She put them on, then crossed the kitchen and donned her cloak.
“Aw, c’mon. Show me. Show me.”
“No, no, no,” she said, laughing as she grabbed the pail that stood on the floor beside the back door. Leaving Daniel and his pleas behind, she walked outside into the frosty morning air. It was not quite dawn, but the sky was lightening with the first gray hint of it. After using the privy, she filled the pail with water from the well and returned to the kitchen. She ignited the banked coals in the hearth with the bellows, heated the water, and washed her face and hands, all the while ignoring Daniel’s pleas to be taught the finer points of pickpocketing.
“Stop it,” she finally said in a stern voice reminiscent of Miss Prudence. “I’m not going to do it, and that’s that.”
“Do what?”
Both of them turned around to see John Smith standing in the doorway that led to the taproom. He still wore the tattered brown oilskins of the night before, and there were tired lines around his eyes that showed he had not yet been to bed.
“John!” Daniel jumped up from the table and ran across the kitchen, throwing himself at the man with gleeful abandon.
As if this were a common occurrence, he was ready for the assault. He grabbed the boy, laughing as he lifted him into the air, slinging him over one shoulder like a sack of flour. “Good morning, Daniel.”
Katie shook her head, watching him with the boy. “I believe you were here just a few hours ago. Don’t you ever sleep?”
He grinned and sauntered into the kitchen, Daniel still slung over his shoulder. “I told you I’d be around to keep an eye on you,” he reminded her as he crossed the room to her side. He bent down, dipping his shoulder to slide the boy to the ground. “Where’s your father?” he asked. “I need to see him.”
“They’re both still abed,” Daniel replied. “I’ll get them.”
He left the kitchen. John Smith watched him go, then returned his attention to her. He studied her for several seconds, and she tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Aren’t you going to answer my question?” he finally asked.
He was standing so close, she felt suffocated. What was it about him that rattled her so? “What question?” she asked, grabbing for a poker to stoke the fire.
“What does Daniel want that you are refusing to do?”
“He wants a lesson in pickpocketing,” she said with a sigh.
“I’m not surprised. You refused?”
“I don’t think Molly would take kindly to lessons of that sort.”
He laughed. “You’re probably right.” He paused, as if giving the matter further consideration, then he added, “Although that might depend on whose pockets he dipped into.”
“Tories, you mean.”
“Naturally. Molly might then consider it a patriotic duty.” He glanced up and down the length of her, and his smile faded
. “Why don’t you sell that soldier’s watch and buy yourself a decent dress?”
The sudden change of subject surprised her, but when she glanced down at herself, she could appreciate why he had asked the question. Her dress was a revolting shade of brown linsey-woolsey, and because it was the only garment she owned, it served as day dress, Sunday dress, and nightgown. It was tattered and stained and should have been thrown away long ago. But she couldn’t very well purchase new clothes by selling a watch that didn’t exist. Stealing Captain Worth’s watch had been a sham she and the officer had concocted two days ago, with the viscount’s blessing, of course. The purpose had been to get her into the Mermaid with a minimum of suspicion, and, except for the man standing before her, the ruse had succeeded well.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she answered, looking him in the eye. “I told you before that there is no watch.”
He started to reply, but at that moment, Molly walked into the kitchen, a pitcher in her hand and Daniel right behind her. “Katie was quite right to say no,” she told her son as she crossed the room to Katie’s other side.
“But I just wanted her to show me,” Daniel said sulkily as he sat down at the table.
“My son is a persistent little beggar,” Molly warned as she poured some of the water Katie had heated into her pitcher. “Don’t you be giving in to him.”
“Don’t worry, Molly,” Katie assured her. “I’m not going to teach him how to steal.”
“She doesn’t have to teach me how,” Daniel interjected. “I’d just like to see her do it, is all.”
Katie shook her head again, but the temptation to show off her greatest skill was becoming too great to resist. She set the poker back in the rack, then turned away, knowing full well that John Smith was directly in her path. The result was that she ran straight into him.
As if it were an instinctive reaction, she brought up her hands between them. In doing so, she managed to slide them inside his jacket to rest against his chest. Beneath his oilskins, she could feel his muscles tense at the intimate contact, and she gave him her most dazzling smile.
“Sorry.” She slid her hands down his chest in a way that was almost a caress and meant to be clearly seductive. His expression did not change, but she heard his sharp indrawn breath, and she realized that though he might hide his emotions well, he was not immune to a bit of feminine charm. She let her hands slide away and stepped around him, but she had taken only two steps before his voice stopped her.
“Give it back.”
She turned around and looked at him with her most innocent expression. “Give what back?”
He held out his hand. “The shilling that was in my pocket.”
“Spoilsport,” she accused, and stepped forward to drop the coin into his palm.
“I didn’t even see you take it!” Daniel cried in delight. “How did you do that?”
“By means you’re too young to appreciate,” John Smith answered for her, his voice wry.
Molly laughed, but her son did not. He frowned, clearly bewildered. “Huh?”
“Never mind.” John put the money back into his pocket, then turned to give the boy a stern look. “Shouldn’t you be about your chores? You’d best get them done, or you’ll be late for lessons this morning.”
“No lessons today,” Molly answered for her son, turning away from the fireplace. “Parson Gilling is sick. He’s been down with the influenza.” She glanced at him and went on, “David will be down shortly.”
“The sooner the better. I need to get some sleep.”
The news that he had not yet been to bed did not seem to surprise Molly, and Katie realized she must be accustomed to this man coming and going from the Mermaid at odd hours.
“I’ll see what’s keeping him,” Molly told him, and turned her attention to Katie. She waved a hand toward the snowy white sheets piled in a large basket in one corner of the room. “It would be a great help to me, Katie, if you start ironing those sheets.”
“Of course,” Katie answered.
“Irons are in the pantry.” Molly left the kitchen with her pitcher of hot water, and Katie fetched the pair of irons and their heating plate to fulfill the other woman’s request.
“That was really something to see, Katie,” Daniel told her as she laid a sheet across the table to iron it.
He was looking at her with such obvious admiration, she couldn’t help telling him, “I can pick locks, too.”
“S’truth?”
She nodded, and he laughed. “You are so much fun, even for a girl. Aren’t you going to show me how you got that shilling out of his pocket? Please?”
“That will be enough.” John Smith’s voice cut in with decisive authority, and the boy immediately fell silent. “Stop badgering her, and tell me what you’re going to do today, since there are no lessons.”
“Mama said I could go to Benjamin’s print shop,” Daniel told him. “Weeks ago, he said he’d teach me how to set the type for the newspaper if I got better at spelling.” He lifted his chin with a proud grin. “And I did.”
John laughed. “Yes, I heard about how you won the spelling bee yesterday. I think everybody in Boston knows by now.”
Daniel rolled his eyes, and his freckled face scrunched with distaste. “Mama tells everybody. It’s embarrassing.”
Katie laughed at that, and she found to her amazement that John Smith was laughing, too. She studied him as she worked, listening as he talked with Daniel, and she realized the boy was hanging on his every word. Somehow, that surprised her. She would not have thought him to have a way with children. But then, he and Daniel seemed to know each other well, and the boy obviously worshiped him.
“Tell me a story, John,” Daniel ordered, propping his elbows on the table as he looked at the man who sat opposite him.
John groaned, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his long legs beneath the table. “Don’t tell me you want to hear about the tea party again.”
“No, I want a new story, one you haven’t told me before.”
Ethan pulled out his watch and shook his head. “We don’t have time. If you’re going to help Benjamin Edes put out the next edition of the Boston Gazette, you’d best get yourself to Edes and Gill. They start before dawn over there. Go on with you.”
Katie could not believe what she was hearing. She stopped ironing in astonishment as Daniel shoved back his chair and ran out the back door. The door banged shut as she looked over at John Smith. She found those perceptive gray eyes watching her closely.
“What thoughts are in your head, that you stare at me in such a horrified way?” he asked. “Have I grown a second head?”
She shook her head. “The Boston Gazette is one of the city’s most radical newspapers. I may have been here only a few days, but even I know that.”
“What of it?”
“I cannot believe Molly would allow her son to work for a printer who is distributing seditious literature. He’s only a boy. What is she thinking to allow it?”
He shrugged, unperturbed by her ire. “Gage hasn’t outlawed the newspapers yet.”
She returned her attention to her work. “But he will. And when he does, that boy will be committing treason.”
He grinned. “As a lawyer I know named Patrick Henry said once, ‘If this be treason, make the most of it.’”
She shot him an unamused look. “You have a glib tongue about your cause, sir.”
“Aye, perhaps I do.”
“Aren’t you afraid of being arrested?”
“For what?” He actually sounded amused. “Talking about rebellion isn’t against the law, at least not yet. And if it were, it would be worth it, for this rebellion is a just one.”
Katie made a sound of contempt, unimpressed. “All seditionists say that, I’m sure. Besides, whether the words are yours or this Patrick Henry or the scathing articles of Samuel Adams typeset by a boy and printed in Benjamin Edes’s newspaper, it makes no difference.’ Tis all just words, just ta
lk. In the end, what difference will it make?”
“Words can change the world,” he answered, smiling at her sound of disbelief. “And you needn’t sound so skeptical.” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. “How did someone so young become so cynical?”
“I’m not cynical, just realistic,” she answered, and set the now cold iron in her hand back on the hearth. “And I’m not that young,” she added, reaching for the second iron that had been heating.
“Of course not,” he answered gravely, resting his chin in his hand. “You must be all of nineteen. Clearly in your dotage.”
She heard the teasing beneath the seriousness of his voice, and she made a face at him. “I’m twenty,” she corrected, “and you needn’t laugh.” She stopped ironing. Staring down at the white linen, she added softly, “Twenty is old enough to lose one’s illusions.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I still have some, and I’m thirty-three. Stop evading my question. How did you become so cynical?”
Katie sighed and continued her task. Why did he probe so? Still, she wanted to get close enough to him to learn his secrets, and to do that, she needed to reveal a few things about herself and establish some trust between them. “When I was a little girl, my mother was the mistress of a very rich man. Given that my own father was long gone and had never gotten around to marrying her, she didn’t have much choice. Life is not kind to unprotected women. I lived among aristocrats, and I saw how they treated my mother. I remember quite well how they treated me.” She looked at the man across the table, and she couldn’t keep a hint of bitterness out of her voice when she said, “My mother died when I was ten, and her protector had no use for me. I was sent to an orphanage. Six months there was long enough for me. I ran away.”
“And you’ve been on your own ever since?”
She heard the hint of compassion in his voice, and she turned on him savagely, hating it. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me!” she ordered, slamming the iron down on the heating plate in front of the fire. “I’ve done all right on my own. And I’ll tell you what life has taught me—that no matter what people say, no matter how much they talk about freedom, if you don’t have money or the proper line of ancestors, you can’t ever be truly free.”
The Charade Page 5