The Charade

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “My guess is that until now, Gage has refused to allow it. You know he has been reluctant to arrest any Sons of Liberty. We know specific orders to do so are on the way to him from London at this moment. My sources at Fort Hill tell me those orders were aboard the Dartmouth, which docked this morning. They will be in Gage’s hands by the end of the day. My guess is that Lowden plans to have me arrested the moment those orders can be carried out.”

  “I cannot believe Katie told Lowden about you,” Molly said stubbornly. “Even if Gage would not let you be arrested, your Tory sources, especially the ones in Gage’s circle, would never have continued to give you information had they known your true position. Every Tory friend of yours would have been told not to tell you anything. Yet that is not the case. Even now, you are still getting information from Gage’s underlings. Katie did not tell them about you. I’m certain of it.”

  Ethan thought about it for a moment, then nodded slowly, granting her that possibility. “If so, what would be her reason for remaining silent?”

  Molly raised her eyebrows and gave him a pointed stare, her meaning plain as day. That look carried with it a glimmer of hope, and Ethan felt all his anger returning in full force. The woman was a traitor, he reminded himself, even as he remembered how it had felt to hold her in his arms.

  He rose from the table so abruptly his chair nearly tipped over. “Cast aside these silly, romantic ideas of yours once and for all!” he told Molly savagely. “The girl did not keep silent out of any loyalty or devotion to me, I assure you. She must have had another reason.”

  “What reason?” Molly countered. “She could have demolished your entire web of informants by now, yet she has not.”

  He sat back down, striving for the objectivity he needed. “Lowden may know everything she knows and may be choosing not to act on it for reasons of his own that we know nothing about.”

  Molly made a sound of impatience. “Ethan, really! Why are you always so ready to believe the worst?”

  “You forget, she admitted the truth to me. She admitted that Lowden hired her.”

  “I have not forgotten that, and I’m not saying she’s innocent. What I am saying is that there might be reasons why she agreed to spy for Lowden in the first place. Good reasons. Like being hungry and being on the run from a brutal master.”

  “And once she was in our circle, she changed her mind and became a Whig like us?” He shook his head. “Oh, no. That lass values her own skin far too highly to risk it for an idealistic cause. No, my guess is that she decided to play a waiting game, pretending to be loyal to both sides, dangling me and Lowden like a pair of marionettes, waiting to see which of us came out on top. Whichever way it turned out, she would gain her freedom. And she has—from me. Lowden also promised her a great deal of money. If she had not told him about me before, she will certainly do so now.”

  “I don’t think so,” Molly said, then pressed her lips tightly together and was silent.

  “We’ll know soon enough which of us is right,” Ethan told her. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “If Katie has betrayed me, I will be in chains on a prison ship in the harbor within a day or two at most.”

  “Don’t say such things!” Dorothy cried. “You’ll need to get out of the city, that’s all. The rest of us are leaving tonight by boat to Charlestown. Come with us.”

  “I cannot leave,” Ethan told her. “There is too much to be done here. I must find out when Gage is sending the Regulars to Concord.”

  “The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get out of the city, my friend,” Andrew pointed out. “With all of us gone, you will be on your own. Unless you have a great deal of influence with Gage and can get a pass, you could find yourself stranded inside the city. And if Katie has told Lowden the truth about you, I don’t see how Gage can let you go.”

  “There was a time when Ethan Harding had enough influence to get such a pass, but I am certain Lowden already knows I’m a Son of Liberty, thanks to Katie. I can hardly expect to be able just to walk out of town. Andrew, are there any forgers hereabouts who can get me false papers?”

  “It’s doubtful. Most of the printers have already left town. Everything is in such turmoil, it’s a blessing that John Hancock and Samuel Adams left the city.”

  “What about other Sons of Liberty?” Ethan asked.

  “My sources in the mechanics union tell me only Dr. Warren, Paul Revere, and yourself have remained behind.”

  “What about the rest of us?” Dorothy asked. “If Katie has betrayed you, might she not have told Lowden about all of your informants?”

  “Even if she has, the rest of you are in no danger of arrest,” Ethan assured her. “Gage has no orders to arrest ordinary citizens, and I cannot imagine him doing so. But it is still wise of you to leave Boston while you can.”

  “Ethan is the one in real danger,” Joshua said. “He is the only Son of Liberty among us.” He turned to Ethan. “Dorothy is right. You must come with us tonight.”

  “I cannot. Not yet. There is still much to be done here. I will remain here with Paul Revere and Joseph Warren as long as I am able, and I will do whatever I can to avoid arrest once Gage receives his orders.”

  “What if Katie has said nothing about you to Lowden? What if you are not arrested?” Molly asked.

  Ethan sighed and looked at her with pity. “Molly, I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.”

  21

  There was nothing for it, Katie decided. She had a plan for how to find out when Gage’s troops were going to march on Concord, but to put her plan into effect, she needed the right clothes for the occasion. Clothes that Elizabeth Waring would never have conceived of making for her, even when she had been Ethan’s mistress. For the clothes, she needed money. Quite a lot of money.

  Hoping to heaven and hell she didn’t get caught, Katie spent the morning dipping in the marketplace. Her luck held. Within two hours, she had enough coin to buy what she needed, and whether it was the devils or the angels who answered her prayers, she didn’t get caught.

  She set off for Mt. Whoredom. There she bought the props to stage the most colossal bluff of her life. She wandered the edge of the prostitution district until she found an inn that was a cut or two below respectable but was clean and not too seedy. She got a room there, making certain it had a bed with a wood frame canopy. She then ordered a bath and sent a runner with a perfumed letter to Sir William Holbrook.

  Most men, Katie knew, were very predictable, provided a woman could accurately assess their character. Sir William was no exception. Like a puppet on a string, he came to her at the inn that night, just as she had expected. When she opened the door of her room to let him in, his reaction told her that she had also lived up to his expectations. Even more, his fantasies.

  She wore a red silk peignoir, loosely tied at her waist. Beneath it, Holbrook could catch only glimpses of the blackest, laciest, tightest corset Mt. Whoredom had to offer. Those two garments and a pair of black satin mules with heels were all she wore.

  He was staring at her so hard his eyes bulged out like a pair of chicken eggs. The man was already starting to sweat, and she didn’t even have his cravat untied yet.

  She closed the door, trying to do what she knew prostitutes always did. She worked to distance herself from this man and this situation, until she felt almost as if another woman were doing this and she were merely watching it. It wasn’t all that difficult. After all, unlike prostitutes, she had no intention of fulfilling the age-old bargain. Not even close. This was a game. She took a deep breath and turned to face him. The game was about to begin.

  “Would you like wine?” she asked, and gestured to an opened bottle on the table beneath the window. Without waiting for an answer, she crossed the room and poured a bit of the red liquid into the two glasses on the table. Smiling, she offered him one and took a sip from the other.

  She smiled. “You are very quiet, William. Have you lost your tongue?”

  He lowered
his gaze, watching as she made a casual move to reveal one of her legs. He swallowed hard. “Harding does himself well, I must say. Where did he find you?”

  She laughed, a husky, sensuous laugh. “Let’s say instead that I found him. He is quite generous with his money, and not a bad lover.” She gave Holbrook a long, soft glance over her wineglass. “But tame, I’m afraid. Very tame.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  She stepped closer and touched his lips with her fingertip. “I knew from the moment we met that you were anything but tame.”

  He reached for her, but she stepped back again, laughing. “William, you move too fast. We have plenty of time.” She took a sip of wine and licked a drop from her upper lip. “Anticipation heightens the excitement, believe me. And before long, you are going to be very excited.”

  She set her glass of wine back on the table. She strolled past him to the bed and the pile of silk cravats she had laid there earlier. Idly, she picked one up in her hands and turned to him. “Cravats, you know, are a wonderful thing.”

  She fingered the cravat, staring down at it thoughtfully, letting it slide back and forth in her hands almost as if she were caressing it. When she glanced up, she saw that Holbrook wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the long strip of silk in her hands. “Silk is the most erotic fabric,” she told him, wrapping the ends of the cravat slowly around her fists. “Strong and soft. Perfect for us. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  He didn’t even bother to nod. She knew his imagination was running wild. He licked his lips. A drop of sweat ran down his cheek.

  “Look at me, William.”

  He lifted his gaze to her face, and she smiled. “Take off your shirt and your waistcoat,” she ordered.

  Without a qualm, he obeyed, still staring into her eyes. Once he had obeyed that command, she gave him another. “Come here.”

  As he came toward her, she slowly shifted their positions. It was like a dance, and she was leading him. Without his even being aware of it, she maneuvered him until the backs of his knees hit the footboard of the bed. “Hold out your hands.”

  He held out his hands. Like a lamb to the slaughter, she thought, and wrapped the silk around his wrists. Slowly, she lifted his wrists and tied his hands to the wooden canopy overhead.

  “Pull on it, William. Is it tight?”

  He tugged and nodded.

  “You’re sure? It has to be tight.” She laughed softly. “After all, I wouldn’t want you to get away.”

  He tugged hard on the cravat and nodded again. Satisfied, she slid her hands down his sunken chest and round, soft belly as she sank to her knees and began to undo the buttons of his breeches. She carefully avoided his aroused penis. After all, she wasn’t going to touch the damn thing, not even for secrets of state. Leaving on his linen underdrawers, she slowly slid the breeches off his hips, and he was whimpering before they got to his ankles.

  She glanced up at his face and felt suddenly alarmed. He was so red, she hoped he didn’t have apoplexy before she could find out what she needed to know. But it wouldn’t be long now.

  She flattened her hands against the sides of his legs and stood up. His whimpers increased as she passed his penis without touching it. He started begging, and she pressed her lips against his, not for the purpose of arousing him further but to silence him. Men who begged were so distasteful. It was time, she decided, to end this.

  “Patience, Sir William,” she whispered, her breath hot against his mouth. “Have patience. We have to wait for your wife.”

  “What?” The word came out in a strangled gasp, a combination of sexual arousal and sudden shock. “My wife?”

  She pulled back, smiling at him, and gently patted his cheek with her fingertips as her bare knee slid sensuously between his thighs. “She should be here very soon.”

  He shook his head wildly, as if unable to take in what she was saying. “What do you mean?”

  She opened her eyes wide. “I invited her to join us. With your, shall we say, unusual proclivities, I thought you might enjoy what the French call a ménage à trois. It’s quite pleasurable. Have you ever done it before?”

  “You’re joking. You and I, with my wife?” The last word came out in a squeak.

  Katie pressed a kiss to his lips. Against his mouth, she said, “Don’t you think it would be exciting?”

  “Not with my wife!”

  “Oh, very well, then, if you want to spoil the party.” She stepped back and calmly turned away, ignoring the indignant splutterings of the man tied to the bed.

  “What is this about?” he demanded. “What game are you playing with me?”

  She pulled at the tie around her waist and removed the peignoir, then tossed the swath of red silk over her shoulder to land at his feet. “This is no game,” she answered, kicking off her shoes. Choosing to leave the corset on, she began to dress in her old clothes, and as she did, she explained. “When I sent a letter to you, I also sent one to your wife, a letter signed by your secretary, telling her that you need her desperately, that it was a matter of supreme importance, with instructions to come here at exactly ten o’clock.” She paused in the act of buttoning her dress and bent down to look at his watch, which was still fastened by its thin chain to his waistcoat. “That’s about fifteen minutes from now.”

  “What do you want, madam? Money?”

  She laughed. “Sir William, I didn’t do all of this for money. Harding gives me plenty of that, I assure you.”

  “What, then? What do you want?”

  She did not answer but finished dressing as if he had not even spoken.

  He waited only a few moments. “What is it you want from me?” he cried, the agony of uncertainty obvious in his voice.

  “I want only one small thing from you.” Finished dressing, Katie walked over to him. Keeping far enough away so that he could not kick her, she said, “I want to know when Gage plans to march on Concord.”

  “What?”

  Clearly, this was not what he had expected, for he began shaking his head in apparent disbelief. “Gage is marching on Concord? Where on earth did you hear that?”

  She smiled at him sweetly. “I am losing my patience. When do they march?”

  He tried to bluster it out. “Mrs. Armstrong, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I have played enough games with you to last a lifetime, Sir William. That information is all I want from you. Speak it, and I will let you go. Tell me that one, small fact, and your wife will never know about our little assignation. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I will simply leave you here for her to find you.”

  “But I don’t know when they march! I’m not privy to that sort of information.”

  She sighed with mock regret. “This won’t do, my dear fellow.”

  He licked his lips. “I’m telling you, I don’t know when it will be. I don’t know.”

  She gave Holbrook a pitying glance, from the hands tied over his head to the breeches down around his ankles. She clicked her tongue. “What will your wife say when she finds you in this condition?”

  “I’ll tell her I was forced. That thugs—”

  “What? Kidnapped you, pulled your breeches down, then left with your pocket money?” She laughed. “Of course. All thugs do that.”

  “I’ll think of something credible to tell her.”

  “Hmm, you do that. But whatever you tell her, I advise you to think of it quickly. I judge you have about ten minutes left, if your wife is a punctual woman.”

  “Be damned to you.”

  Katie shrugged. “I wonder how long it will take for the scandal to leak out. Gossip is such an insidious thing.”

  “You can’t prove any of this ever happened.”

  “Since when have gossiping ladies ever needed any proof? You know as well as I that accusation is enough to ruin a man. Besides—” She gestured to the peignoir. “As for the thug story, what sort of thugs do you suppose wear those?”

  He stared down
at the pool of red silk, and a look of such misery came over his face that Katie actually felt sorry for him. “The night of April eighteenth,” he mumbled. “Four days from now.”

  She let out her breath in a rush of relief. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial of holy water. This stuff had always served her well, especially in her dealings with Holbrook. For her to return him to a suitable state of dress, he had to be unconscious. She couldn’t risk having him overpower her. After pulling out the cork, she pressed the small vial to his lips. “Drink this.”

  He pulled his head back from the bottle in her hand as far as he could. “Are you going to poison me now?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she chided gently. “It’s not poison. You’re only going to go to sleep, and I swear to you that when your wife arrives, she’ll simply find that you’ve had a bit too much to drink.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t have a choice. But don’t worry, Sir William. I will keep my word. No one will ever know about this.” She reached behind his head and grabbed a handful of his hair. Pulling his head back, she pushed the opening of the bottle between his teeth and tipped it so the liquid ran into his mouth. As she had expected, he tried to spit it out. But he involuntarily swallowed enough of the drug to have the effect she needed. Within just a few short minutes, he passed out. His head lolled sideways, and his whole body sagged. The silk scarves were all that kept him from falling to the floor.

  Katie studied him with mingled disgust and pity. It would be no more than he deserved if she did nothing, if she left him to his fate, but she could not. She was a woman of her word. She untied the scarves and let him fall back onto the bed. She stuffed all the props she had brought into the small valise she had carried them in, including one of the two glasses. The other she left on the table, along with the bottle of wine. She then buttoned his breeches and left him snoring in the room, looking for all the world like a man who had gotten drunk all alone and passed out.