The Charade

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  He knew. Somehow, some way, he knew the truth. Oh, God. Katie sucked in a sharp breath, trying not to panic.

  “Did you really believe you could continue this deception of yours indefinitely? That I would never find out you are one of Lowden’s informants?”

  Think, she told herself. Think of another lie. But she was sick of lies, sick of deceptions, sick of waiting in dread for this moment, which she had always known would come.

  “No, I knew you would eventually find out the truth,” she answered, and it took all the will she had to keep her voice steady.

  She heard him let out his breath, as if he had been waiting for just that answer. “At least you do not insult my intelligence by trying to deny it.”

  He had not moved, and though she could see the shadowy outline of his form in the doorway, she could not see his face. She desperately wanted to light a lamp, thinking she might perhaps read something in his expression that would give her hope. But she did not dare move. “No, I do not deny it.”

  He said nothing, and she decided her only hope was to tell him everything. He would probably never forgive her, but at least he might understand that spying for Lowden had never really been a choice. “Do you remember that day in North Square, when you first saw me?”

  “I do,” he answered, and started toward her. “I remember how beautiful you looked. Like an angel, I thought.”

  For a moment, she wondered wildly if she should try to duck past him and run, but she remained where she was. He won’t hurt me, she thought. Ethan would never hurt me.

  “An angel,” he repeated, halting in front of her. A slash of moonlight coming in between the curtain and the window frame lit a white line across his face, but it did not help her, for she could read nothing in his expression.

  She opened her mouth to continue her story, but suddenly, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her hard against him. “Tell me, angel,” he said. “Tell me the truth. If you can.”

  She took a deep breath, then began to talk, getting the words out as rapidly as she could, hoping that her explanations would satisfy him enough to keep his anger at bay. “Ethan, listen to me. When you saw me that day in the marketplace, Lowden saw me, too. He had an arrest warrant drawn against me, and he knew about Willoughby. He offered me the same bargain you did, only he offered his first. I had no choice but to spy for him. But I’ve told him nothing. I spied on the rebels, yes, but—”

  “Spied on the rebels?” he asked, his voice so icy that she began to shiver. “Or did Lowden hire you to spy on me alone?”

  “You alone.”

  “Gage’s orders to arrest the rebels will be arriving within a day or two at most. When that happens, how many redcoats shall I expect at my door to place me under arrest?”

  “You will not be arrested, Ethan,” she whispered. “I have not told him who you really are.”

  “You are such a liar. A beautiful and talented liar.”

  She sighed. “The problem with being a liar,” she said wearily, “is that when you do tell the truth, no one believes you.”

  With one arm securely around her, he lifted his other hand to her face. The tips of his fingers glided down her cheek, then he curled his hand around the side of her neck. His thumb forced her chin up so that he could look at her face in the dim moonlight.

  “You’ve never told the truth in your life,” he muttered. “And you won’t tell it now, it seems. So, perhaps I should stop wasting precious time and kill you without trying to get any more information from you first.”

  The cold, speculative way he contemplated her death frightened her more than the hand at her throat.

  “Ethan,” she whispered hoarsely, rigid with fright, knowing she could not escape from the prison of his arms. “You won’t kill me. You can’t.”

  “Indeed, I can,” he assured her, his breath hot and harsh against her cheek. “I could break your neck with my bare hands. The thought tempts me enormously.”

  “You won’t kill me,” she repeated obstinately. Even with his cause in jeopardy, she refused to believe it. Besides, she knew she had one weapon with which she could defend herself.

  She forced her body to relax in his embrace, and slowly, ever so slowly, she melted against him. She spread her hands across his chest, and she could feel his heart thudding beneath her touch. She waited a moment, holding her breath, but he did not move, and that gave her hope. She slid her hands up his chest and cupped his face. “Ethan,” she said in an aching voice, “I did not betray you. I swear it on my life. I told Lowden nothing but lies, and the reason is because I love you.”

  A cry of rage and pain tore from his throat, putting an end to her explanations and her hope. His fingers curled around her wrists, and he wrenched her hands away from his face as if her touch burned him like acid. He shoved her backward.

  “Get out of my sight!” he shouted, his voice filled with such loathing that it tore her heart in half. He pulled something out of his pocket and slapped it into her hand. It was a sheet of parchment. “There is your indenture release. Go, run while you can, and never let me see you again.”

  She knew his heart was lost to her forever, and the survival instincts that had carried her through most of her life took over. She ducked past him before he could change his mind.

  Hugging the sheet of parchment to her chest, she raced through the darkened house to the back door, and after losing a precious moment to fumble with the latch, she jerked it open and ran out into the alley. But she did not stop there. She kept on running mindlessly, though she knew in her heart that Ethan was not following her.

  She ran until her side ached. She ran until her lungs burned. She ran and ran, until finally exhaustion overcame her, and she stumbled, pitching forward and falling hard, scraping her elbows against the cobblestones as she landed, her certificate of freedom beneath her.

  Shaken, she lay there for a moment, then slowly rolled over, grimacing at the pain that shot through her limbs. She sat up, but she did not get to her feet. Gasping for breath, shaking with fear and heartbreak, she sat there on the cobblestones of an empty alley and simply could not find the strength to stand up.

  Ethan’s words came back to her with all the harshness of a whip.

  Get out of my sight, and never let me see you again.

  She slammed her hands over her ears, but she could not blot out his words, and she had the sick feeling that the contempt in his voice would haunt her for as long as she lived.

  Katie did not know how long she sat there on the cold cobblestones of the alley. She did not know if she had injured herself during her fall. She only knew that her heart hurt far more than her body. In the gray light of dawn, she watched a regiment of Regulars march along the street past the alley where she sat. Though she knew she could not sit there forever, it was a long time before she found the will to move.

  Finally, she got to her feet, grimacing at the pain that shot through her limbs. The sleeves of her dress were torn, and the skin on the inside of her wrists and forearms was scraped raw from her fall, but otherwise she found to her relief that she was uninjured. The last thing she needed just now was broken bones. A broken heart was enough.

  Katie took stock of her situation. She could not return to the house. That much was clear. On the other hand, with soldiers marching through the streets, she did not like the idea of remaining outdoors.

  She didn’t even have any money with her. Katie dug into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out two British pence. She stared down at the pair of coins and felt an absurd desire to laugh. She had no home, no clothes but the ones on her back, nowhere to go, and tuppence in her pocket. Her situation, she decided, was pretty grim.

  She looked down at the pavement and saw the sheet of parchment Ethan had shoved into her hand. Her freedom. It didn’t seem to matter much right now.

  She knew the wise thing to do now was exactly what Ethan had suggested. She was free of Willoughby, at least, and if she could get out of the city, she
could be well away from Boston before Lowden discovered she was missing and exercised that arrest warrant. She bent down and picked up her certificate of freedom from indenture, folded it, and put it in her pocket.

  The regiment of soldiers had passed by and was far down the street when Katie stepped out of the alley. She slipped her two precious pence back into her pocket and began walking in the opposite direction of the soldiers, listening to the precise tap of their boot heels echo behind her. She had no clear idea of where she was going or what she was going to do, but she knew she did not want to follow a regiment of marching redcoats.

  Katie had taken only a few steps when she stopped walking and frowned, thinking hard. Ethan had told her the other night that the troops had been expected to march on Concord Sunday but had not done so. He had also told her they probably still planned to conduct that mission, but he did not know when.

  If she could find out exactly when Gage’s troops planned to march, she could let Ethan know.

  Immediately on the heels of that thought came another one, a discouraging one. He would not listen to her, and even if he did, he would not believe her. Why should he?

  She turned a corner and halted again, her speculations ended by the sight before her. On the next corner, a soldier was harassing a newspaper seller, a boy of perhaps ten years old. As she watched the redcoat shoving him and laughing, she realized that though the boy was not Daniel Munro, he easily could have been. Daniel had worked for the Boston Gazette.

  The soldier grabbed a handful of newspapers from the pile by his feet and tossed them contemptuously into the air. Sheets of newsprint scattered to the wind. He then grabbed the boy and twisted his arm behind his body. The child let out a howl of pain. “Bloody lobster!” the boy shouted, and kicked the soldier in the shin.

  The redcoat let out a curse, then whirled the boy around to face him and backhanded the child across the face.

  Without thinking, Katie ran toward them, knowing she had to do something. “For God’s sake!” she cried, grabbing the soldier by the arm to keep him from hitting the boy again. “He’s only a child. You can’t do this!”

  The redcoat paused and looked at her, stunned. Then he began to laugh as he easily pulled his arm from her grasp. “Who’s going to stop me?” he asked contemptuously, looking her up and down. “I am one of the king’s troops, and selling this atrocity that passes for a newspaper is a criminal act against the king.”

  “Who says so?” she demanded. “Gage hasn’t declared them against the law.”

  “It’s speaking against the king,” he roared back at her, clearly showing that his rage, like that of most soldiers in Boston these days, was at the boiling point. “It’s treason to say anything against our king, and you colonials aren’t going to get by with it any longer! Get out of the way, girl. You can’t stop me.”

  Katie stared at him, frustration and fury welling up inside her. Images of Willoughby and the girl he had brutalized flashed through her mind, and she felt as helpless now as she had then.

  Ethan’s words that day he’d gone off to Concord came back to her.

  There is a better way to live than at the whim of another, be he a king or a master, and we are willing to risk our lives to find it.

  At the time, she had scoffed at those words, thinking them unrealistic nonsense. But now, as she felt herself shoved aside by a soldier who was about to beat up a boy who had simply been selling a newspaper, those words suddenly made sense.

  Katie set her jaw. She was not going to stand by and let this happen. “Captain, please,” she implored, and shoved the boy aside to step between them. With the boy behind her, she put a hand on the redcoat’s arm and smiled up at him before he could even think of setting her aside again. “Perhaps,” she said in a softer voice, “we can come to some sort of terms about this that are agreeable to us both.”

  It was so easy that she wanted to laugh. Comprehension of her meaning dawned on his face, and he grinned. “Well, now, that’s the friendliest thing a Boston girl has said to me since I got here.”

  “Really?” She slanted a look at him from beneath her lashes, a look as old as time. She moved as if to clasp her hands behind her. In reality, she counted off on her fingers for the boy behind her—one, two, three.

  He was a smart lad. The moment her fingers indicated three, he whirled around and began to run. “Go, go!” she shouted to him as she darted past the redcoat and took off in the opposite direction. With an oath, the soldier started after her, but he had taken only a few steps before he evidently decided his duty to destroy seditious newspapers was more important than a pesky rebel woman or a boy. As she ran, Katie glanced over her shoulder just in time to see him set the newspapers on fire.

  She ran for another fifty yards or so, then ducked into an alley. She sank back against a wall, and at the same time she was gasping for breath, she burst out laughing. She knew she would probably never meet that boy again, but she felt a great sense of satisfaction knowing that she had helped him get away from that bully of a soldier, and she couldn’t help the triumphant amusement she felt. It was amazing how easily the attention of some men could be distracted by a smile and a bit of eyelash batting.

  I make myself the exception.

  Ethan’s words that night in the White Swan came back to her, and Katie’s amusement quickly faded. He always had been the exception. Her feminine wiles had not worked on him. Perhaps, she thought wryly, that was why she had fallen in love with him.

  Pain shot through her again at the memory of how he had cast her aside, but she knew it was all her own doing, and she could not hold him accountable for the choices she had made. She could not blame him for no longer trusting her. She also knew there was nothing she could do to change the past. The important issue that had to be faced was what she was going to do now.

  After all, she had to do something.

  Katie stood in the alley for a long moment, thinking hard. If she could learn somehow exactly when Gage’s troops planned to march on Concord, then she could carry that information back to the Mermaid. By now, Ethan had already warned them about her. There was a good chance no one would believe her, but she knew she had to try.

  In every problem she had ever faced before, she had always run away. She had run away from Miss Prudence, she had run away from more constables than she could count, she had run away from Willoughby.

  This time, she was not going to run away, even if it meant her life was the price she paid. She squared her shoulders, brushed the dirt off her dress as best she could, and started making a plan to acquire the information Ethan needed. He was lost to her forever, but she would not leave him. He might not welcome her help, but she was going to give it anyway.

  The oddest thing about it all was that she wasn’t going to do this just because of the man she loved. She would do it for him, and for Molly and David and Daniel, and that boy who sold newspapers, and everyone else who wanted a better way to live.

  “I don’t believe it!” Molly burst out, rising from her chair in the back room of the Mermaid to face the tall, dark-haired man at the head of the table.

  Ethan knew Molly could not be objective when it came to Katie, but he was frustrated nonetheless by her blindness where that girl was concerned, perhaps because it reflected his own. He had trusted Katie, and all the while she had been working for Lowden. That thought of her brought back all the pain and rage he felt, and talking about how she had deceived him was nearly unbearable.

  His gaze swept the table, resting briefly on each person present. Molly, David, Dorothy, Joshua, Andrew, and Adam. All of them were people who had been worthy of trust, who had proven themselves time and again. Why had he been so ready to trust a girl he knew was a liar and a thief?

  Because he had fallen in love with her. Why not admit it? Like a callow youth, he had been blinded by love.

  He closed his eyes, fighting against his anger at Katie and at himself until he had banished it to a far corner of his mind. If he was ang
ry, he could not think objectively, and dealing with the situation would become even harder.

  While Ethan was occupied with these thoughts, the discussion of Katie went on around him.

  Molly was still defending her. “Katie a spy? It’s nonsense. Whatever Dorothy says, there must be another explanation.” She glared at the dark-haired woman who sat across from her. “There are some who’ll say anything out of spite.”

  “That is not fair!” Dorothy also stood up, and her brother, who sat beside her, put a restraining hand on her arm. “I did not—”

  “Ladies, please,” Ethan interrupted in a weary voice, gesturing for both women to sit back down. “May we return to the point? Katie cannot be trusted. She is a Lowden spy.”

  “I must admit,” David interjected his voice into the discussion, “like my wife, I have a difficult time accepting such an idea. I was genuinely fond of the girl.”

  “As was I,” Joshua added. When his sister glared at him, he added hastily, “But, of course, she did betray us.”

  “Are you certain of this?” Andrew asked, glancing from Ethan to Dorothy and back again. “Are you both truly certain?”

  Dorothy gave an emphatic nod of her head. “Captain Worth told me that Katie had been hired by Lowden for the specific purpose of finding John Smith. He’d had quite a bit of ale earlier in the evening, but he knew what he was saying.”

  “I’m certain as well,” Ethan said, careful to keep his face expressionless as he looked at his friend across the table. “I confronted her, and she admitted the truth to me. She has been an informant for Lowden ever since she began working here. Molly, you remember that first night when she was on the run from the Regulars, and Captain Worth followed her in here with two of his men? Worth told Dorothy that the entire scene was staged to gain our acceptance and trust.”

  Adam spoke for the first time. “But Katie has known for weeks that you are John Smith. If she has been working for Lowden all this time, you should have been arrested long before now. Why has Lowden not put Ethan Harding under arrest?”