The Charade

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “Yes,” she admitted matter-of-factly. “I have always known that. But this is different. The men we are passing look at me differently from the way men have looked at me before, admiring but restrained, as if they think I’m a lady. I’ve never really thought about how much difference clothes can make to what people think of you.” She gave him a shrewd sideways glance. “But you know that, don’t you?”

  “Clothes can be a very valuable tool in creating a certain impression, yes.”

  “Mmm,” she murmured in assent, and studied him thoughtfully as they walked. “You use clothes very effectively yourself, although I have to say that I like you better when you aren’t wearing that wig.”

  “You and I are in complete agreement about that,” he told her. “Unfortunately, wigs are in high fashion, and I am a fashionable man.”

  She laughed at his unenthusiastic tone. “Ethan Harding, perhaps,” she agreed in a low voice. “But what about John Smith?”

  “I believe that man prefers oilskins.”

  Katie shook her head and murmured under her breath, “It’s so astonishing that no one ever recognizes that you are both men.”

  “Not so astonishing. The two fellows have an entirely different group of friends, and it is highly unlikely they would have any mutual acquaintance.”

  “Perhaps, but what is even more astonishing is how you can talk about them both as if they are totally separate from yourself.”

  “They are.”

  She frowned, looking at him in some uncertainty. “What do you mean?”

  “John Smith is an invention of my mind. I created him, as if I were writing a novel. I gave him a family, conveniently dead, of course, with graves on the frontier. Native savages, you know.”

  She nodded with pretended sympathy. “How tragic.”

  “Indeed. So tragic that he came to Boston and began working on the docks.”

  “I can understand thinking of John Smith as someone wholly separate from yourself, but how can you say that about Ethan Harding?”

  “I am not the same Ethan Harding I was ten years ago.”

  “What do you mean by that? What changed you? The war?”

  “Many things changed me,” he said vaguely. He had no intention of telling her anything about himself that he did not need to. Instead, he paused on the street and said, “This is indeed a day for transformations. Look at your house. You won’t recognize it.”

  Katie turned her head and stared at the house in obvious astonishment. It was no wonder. Ethan, too, was amazed at the changes that had been wrought in one day.

  The soot accumulated over the winter from Boston’s many coal fires had been washed away from the exterior, and the brick looked almost new. The shutters had been given a new coat of dark green paint, and a shiny new brass knocker and kick plate had been added to the front door, which had been painted the same dark green as the shutters. The walk had been swept, the two front windows had been given new panes of glass, and all the dead weeds had been cleared from the yard. The house now looked like any other upper-class home in the neighborhood.

  “My goodness!” Katie gasped, laughing. “You’re right. I hardly recognize it.”

  They walked up the front steps, and before Katie could even open the door, it was opened for them by an elderly man with the typical expressionless face of a well-trained butler. So stoically did he look at them, he might have been carved out of wood.

  “You must be Stephens, the butler,” Ethan greeted him. “I am Ethan Harding. This is Mrs. Armstrong.”

  Katie gave the servant an imperious nod perfectly suited to her role as mistress of the house. Stephens also found it so, for he held out one gloved hand for her cloak without any change in his impassive expression. If he disapproved of the fact that his wages were paid by a man not her husband, he was clearly too well bred to show it. One of Adam’s greatest talents, Ethan knew, was hiring servants. They were always impeccable.

  Stephens accepted her cloak, then held out his hand for Ethan’s. He removed it and handed it over to the butler, then removed his hat. The impassive Stephens did not blink an eye when he pulled off the damned wig as well, dropped the wig into the hat, and thrust the hat into the butler’s outstretched hand.

  “There is a fire in the parlor, ma’am,” he said, and pointed to a room to her right. “Would you like tea, ma’am?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  After hanging their cloaks and Ethan’s hat and wig on the coat tree, Stephens left them, presumably in search of the tea tray, and Ethan followed Katie into the parlor.

  “I thought tea had been banned in Boston,” she said.

  “Not banned,” he corrected her. “Boycotted. And only by Whigs. You, my dear, are a loyal Tory, like myself.”

  Their gazes met in tacit understanding. “Of course,” she said with a straight face. “Good thing, too. I am very fond of tea.”

  His hair felt matted from the wig, and he raked his fingers through it. He glanced around. “What do you think? Does it please you better now than it did last night?”

  Katie glanced around, clearly just as surprised at the changes that had taken place inside the house as she had been by those outside. The white sheets that had covered the furniture had been removed, and though the furnishings were plainer than the luxurious ones of Ethan’s house, they were quite comfortable. There was a colorful chintz sofa with two matching wing chairs facing the fireplace, as well as a few side tables and several additional chairs. Behind a beautiful brass fire screen, a coal fire heated the room. For entertainment, there was a small pianoforte, a chess set, and a card table. It was a cozy room, meant to make one feel at home.

  Katie found it so as well. “I haven’t lived anywhere this comfortable since I was a child,” she told him, clearly well pleased. “It’s lovely.”

  “Better than it was yesterday.”

  “Much better.”

  “I’m glad you like it. Shall we have a look at the rest?”

  She agreed to that suggestion with a wide smile, and they left the parlor to tour the remainder of the house.

  She expressed her relief that there wasn’t a mouse to be seen anywhere. He was amused that she spent at least twenty minutes at the linen cupboard, fingering the sheets and towels almost with reverence.

  He followed her through every room, and her delight was such a pleasure to watch that Ethan knew no matter how much it had cost, it was worth every cent.

  Though she seemed pleased with all the rooms in the house, it was her bedroom that seemed to give her the most pleasure of all. To Ethan’s mind, it was a nice, perfectly ordinary bedroom, except for the huge copper bathtub that reposed in one corner. There was a large mahogany four-poster, with two matching bedside tables, a washstand with a porcelain pitcher and bowl, and a huge armoire that, if he knew anything about women, still wouldn’t be big enough to hold all her new clothes. There were lace curtains at the windows and several nice paintings on the walls, but Ethan couldn’t see anything particularly extraordinary about it.

  But Katie entered the room with a cry of pure delight. At first, he thought it was the bathtub that she found so wonderful, but he was mistaken. “Ethan, look, a real bed. It’s a real bed with a feather mattress!”

  Before he could remind her that all the other bedrooms she had walked through had real beds as well, she ran to the four-poster, turned around, spread her arms wide, and fell back onto the mattress with the uninhibited joy of a child. “Oh, this is heavenly. You don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve slept in a bed like this.”

  He laughed, and she lifted her head to look at him. “Laugh all you want,” she told him. “I don’t care. This is the greatest luxury there is.”

  He watched her as she settled into the softness of the pillows with a smile of pure pleasure on her face. With a suddenness that startled him, Ethan was suddenly hot and hard, and he had to grip the edge of the door frame to keep himself from moving toward her, from burying himself in her, burying them
both in the softness of the mattress she was enjoying with such innocent abandon. He set his jaw and did not move. One second went by, two, three. He did not know how long he stood there, watching her.

  With a sigh, she rolled onto her stomach, and he gripped the door frame harder, until his hand ached. His body ached as well, ached with the effort of holding back. “Are you going to fall asleep?” he asked, his voice strange to his own ears, barely audible to him past the rush of his blood pumping in his veins.

  “I might,” she answered, her voice muffled by pillows. “I just might.”

  But she rolled again onto her back and sat up, her skirts billowing around her and that absurd little hat resting crookedly over her eye.

  It was the hat that was his undoing, his excuse, his reason for slamming the door shut and moving toward her, for sitting on the edge of the bed with the vague idea of straightening her hat. But somehow the hat ended up tossed on the floor instead, and his hands were on her shoulders, pushing her down into the mattress.

  He thought he heard her make a sound of surprise, but he covered her mouth with his, kissing her as he caught that little feminine sound and smothered it. Though he had kissed her twice before for reasons that had nothing to do with desire, this time, desire was the only reason. His tongue entered her mouth, tasted deeply of her, as his hands slid beneath her. He rolled them both so that she was now on top of him, so that his hands could undo the buttons at the back of her dress.

  She arched her back with a moan of pleasure, exposing her throat. He pressed his lips to the pulse at the base of her neck and felt her body move against him in an erotic, rolling motion of her hips against his that sent him spiraling past reason, his only coherent thought a curse for Elizabeth, who had sold his mistress a dress with too damned many buttons.

  But he had barely unfastened the third one down her back when she went limp against him, her body suddenly weighted and unmoving. “You promised me,” she whispered, her face buried in the curve of his shoulder. “You gave me your word.”

  Christ, Katie, not now. Don’t do this, don’t stop me now.

  But it was useless; those whispered words were a woman’s best defense, and he could not go on. He shoved her off and sat up, breathing as if he’d been running. Katie, too, was breathing hard, and he didn’t know whether it pleased him or not to know she had been just as aroused as he.

  Neither of them spoke, and after a few minutes, Ethan got up from the bed with an abrupt movement. “I’m sorry about that,” he said roughly, knowing he didn’t sound sorry at all. “It won’t happen again.”

  He opened the door, but before he could walk through it, her voice stopped him. “Ethan?”

  “What?”

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Probably not. I’ll be having a dinner party Thursday night to introduce you to a few acquaintances. I’ll have my carriage fetch you at seven o’clock.”

  He took a step through the door.

  “Ethan?”

  He smothered a curse and waited.

  “Thank you for the clothes. And for having the house repaired and for getting rid of the mice because you knew I hate them… and I just wanted to say thank you because… well, because I wouldn’t want you to think I wasn’t grateful for what you’ve done. I mean…” She paused amid the tangle of sentences and took a deep breath, then burst out, “Thank you for keeping your word.”

  “For God’s sake,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Don’t thank me for that.”

  He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. He didn’t want her thanks for keeping that promise. He had the feeling that before it was all over, it was a promise he was going to break.

  11

  The following morning, Katie was awakened by a light tap on her bedroom door. She opened her eyes as a girl about her own age wearing a mobcap and apron entered the room bearing a laden tray. “Breakfast, ma’am,” the girl said with a timid smile as she paused beside the bed.

  It took Katie a moment to realize she was actually being served breakfast in bed. She sat up, and the maid placed the tray across her lap. A boiled egg, kippers, a pot of tea, and a piping-hot stack of buttered toast with marmalade filled the tray, and she sniffed appreciatively. Though it was beyond her experience to be waited on, Katie decided she could easily get used to it. “It looks wonderful. Thank you.”

  The girl smiled. “I’ll tell Mrs. Clapham you said so, ma’am. She asked me to say if eight o’clock be too early for you, to tell her when you’d like it served, and she’d rearrange things to suit you.”

  Katie smiled at that. What a luxury, to have a hot breakfast when she chose and to eat it in bed. “Eight o’clock is fine.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  The girl bobbed at the knees and started to turn away, but Katie stopped her. “What’s your name?”

  “Janie, ma’am. Janie Duncan.” She gestured to the window. “Shall I open the curtains, ma’am?”

  “Yes, please,” she answered gravely, but she wanted to laugh. She was going to have to become accustomed to being called ma’am. It was not a title she was used to. “I’m glad to meet you, Janie,” she said as the girl pulled back the curtains from the window and sunlight flooded the room. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet last night.”

  A slight frown creased the maid’s brow. “I hope I didn’t do wrong about that.”

  “Wrong?” Katie was bewildered. “Wrong about what?”

  “I’m to be your maid, ma’am. That’s what Mr. Lawrence said when he hired me.” Before she could ask who Mr. Lawrence was, Janie rushed on, “But I wasn’t able to start work until late in the evening, and your door was closed, and I took that to mean you was asleep already and wouldn’t be needing me until morning. But I don’t see how you got undressed by yourself.” The maid picked up Katie’s green dress from the chair where she had left it the night before and eyed it doubtfully. “There’s an awful lot of buttons down the back.”

  Katie felt the heat rush into her cheeks, and she quickly ducked her head. She wondered what the girl would say if she explained that the top three buttons had already been unfastened by the man who paid the wages in this household. She took a gulp of tea and figured that there were some things servants just didn’t need to know. She’d probably learn of the arrangements soon enough, anyway.

  Suddenly, the door burst open, and Katie found another visitor entering her bedroom. This visitor, however, was no servant. Daniel Munro came into the room with all the force of a hurricane and all the enthusiasm of a half-grown puppy. “’Morning, Katie,” he cried, and slammed the door behind him. He plopped down on the edge of her bed with enough force to rattle the dishes on her tray. “Have you heard the news?”

  “Daniel Munro!” Janie grabbed the boy by the ear and dragged him off the bed. “Don’t you know better than to just burst into a lady’s bedroom?”

  Daniel rubbed his sore ear. “What are you on about, Janie Duncan?” he demanded resentfully. “There’s no lady here. It’s just Katie.”

  Katie looked from one to the other. “You two know each other?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the maid answered. “Second cousins.” She turned to the boy and pointed to the door. “Out.”

  “It’s all right, Janie,” Katie told her. “He can stay. What news, Daniel?”

  “The riot yesterday.” Daniel resumed his seat on the edge of her bed, and as Katie ate her breakfast, he launched into a rambling account of how there had been some big meeting at a place called the Old South Meeting House, and how Samuel Adams had been there, and Dr. Warren, too. And how Dr. Warren had made a speech, and how there were lobsterbacks there who booed and hissed.

  “And one of ’em yelled, ‘Fire! Fire!’ and that was it,” Daniel concluded in a rush. “Only John thinks the redcoat didn’t really say ‘Fire.’”

  Katie shook her head, thoroughly confused. “What did Eth—” She broke off and corrected herself. “What did John Smith think he said?”
>
  “He thinks the redcoat was booing Dr. Warren and really said, ‘Fie, fie,’ but Samuel says no, and told Benjamin to put it in the Gazette that he actually said ‘Fire’ to cause a riot. And it did.”

  “You mean people thought he said there was a fire, and they panicked?”

  “That’s it. People started running for the doors and screaming, and some people were trampled. And just then, the redcoats of the Forty-third came marching by with their fifes and drums going, and people really got scared, thinking the Regulars were coming out. Lots of people got hurt. John was really angry, and he told my father how it was stupid of Sam Adams to even have a town meeting right now. He said if anybody had gotten shot like what happened at the massacre five years ago, the war would’ve started then and there. I don’t understand why he was so angry. I mean, John wants war as much as any of us. He’s said so often enough.”

  Janie sniffed. “Don’t be wishing for war, Daniel. No good can come of it. I don’t care what this John Smith says, whoever he is.”

  Katie looked at her curiously. “You don’t know John Smith?”

  “No, ma’am, but then, I don’t know many people in Boston. I’m from Cambridge myself. Daniel’s father sent for me, saying he knew a Mr. Lawrence was hiring a maid for a lady, and how he knew my family needed the money. I came straightaway.”

  “Janie, how can you say you don’t want the war?” Daniel demanded. “You’re a Whig like any of us.”

  “It doesn’t mean I want a war,” the girl answered with a sigh. “I wish they’d just let us go.”

  “They won’t,” Daniel told her. “My father says we’ll go to war with the Regulars before it’s all over, you just wait and see.” He pointed to the tray. “Those look like smashing kippers, Katie. May I have one?”

  David Munro might have been right about an impending war, but the quiet atmosphere of Boston during the three days that followed the incident at Old South Meeting House seemed to belie that prediction. The streets were quiet, there were no riots or mob scenes, and nothing happened to fuel the fires of rebellion. It appeared that each side was making a supreme effort to be civil to the other, as if mere civility could prevent war.