Forever Ashley (5 page)

“Yes...’twould be risky,” Revere conceded, stroking his chin
as he thought. "We are in a critical situation. Mayhap we should allow
time to consider this matter more thoroughly.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Church snapped. “She should be dealt with
immediately!”

Ashley glared at him as she drew closer to Kenneman’s side.
There was definitely something about the man she didn’t like.

“If only we had a place to restrain her until we knew her
purpose for intruding,” Revere mused.

“Intruding!” Ashley cried. “I fell in here by accident.
Believe me, it wasn’t something I planned!”

“Cease your useless grievances, wench!” Aaron snapped.
"Your intent was to listen and observe, then carry back to whoever has
employed you the information you gleaned. Falling through the roof was, I
agree, unplanned, but it in no way alters your intent.”

“I didn’t hear anything!”

“Your protests are meaningless,” Church said.

“What are you going to do?” Ashley asked softly, ignoring
Church and meeting Aaron’s eyes now.

“Drowning you like a cur pup comes to mind. It would be the
simplest and most effective.”

Anger firmed Ashley’s lips, but she bit back the sharp
retort that came to mind. He was an arrogant son of a...“You wouldn’t dare!”

His eyes grew colder. "We have dared much already.”

Ashley swallowed nervously.

“We must rid ourselves of her immediately,” Church urged. “I
will take her to the magistrate.” He reached for Ashley’s arm again.

 “Silencing this spy is of the utmost importance if we are
to maintain our secrecy.”

“I agree, but exposing her may expose us as well,” Aaron
repeated.

“Then what do you suggest?” Revere prompted.

Aaron studied Ashley for a long moment. Finally he spoke,
regret evident in his tone. “I will assume guardianship of her for the next few
days, until we are more clear on what the British are planning.”

Yes! Ashley thought jubilantly. At least for now she would
be spared a terrible fate, though Kenneman looked as if he’d rather have seen her
hanged.

“You are certain you want to assume this unpleasant task?”
Revere inquired.

Ashley chanced a glance at Church, who seemed none too
pleased about the turn of events.

“It does not please me,” Aaron admitted, “but it is the only
recourse at the moment if we are to avoid jeopardizing ourselves and our goal.”

“It is decided then,” Revere said. Ashley could almost see
him dusting his hands off on her. “Dr. Kenneman will take charge of Mistress
Wheeler.”

“Until you ride to warn the minutemen,” Ashley quickly
added. Once that happened, even in a dream, the men would be too busy to worry
about her.

“Cuss it, but she is unnerving!” Warren sputtered.

“You needn’t worry,” Ashley said. “I can’t do anything to
keep you from warning the people that the British are coming.”

“You know they’re coming?” Revere blurted out. The men were
so easily unnerved by proclamations that she was tempted to tell them all she
knew, but she didn’t dare risk any more of their anger.

“Then mayhap you might be so kind as to tell us when and how
they shall come?" Aaron said calmly.

“Well,” Ashley began modestly, then stopped. If she told
them how the British were coming, she would only confirm their suspicions that
she was a Tory spy, and they would hang her. By her heels. At dawn.

“Well...no, I can’t tell you how they’re coming.” If she
told them, it might alter history, and who knew what the ramifications of that
might be? If something went wrong, it wasn’t going to be her fault!

Exasperated by the wench’s refusal to cooperate, Paul spotted
her key chain lying on the table. He pondered it for a moment, then said, “What
manner of trinket be this?”

Of course being a silversmith he would be interested in the
key chain, Ashley realized. The sterling silver initial had been a birthday
gift from Joel.

“It’s a key chain.”

“Interesting.” Paul’s fingers caressed the metal
thoughtfully. “Remarkable workmanship.”

“And what be this?” Adams asked, picking up a small zippered
bag.

“A makeup bag.”

He looked up blankly.

“Cosmetic bag...a bag to carry blusher, lipsticks, collagen
cream for my face?”

Adam sent Aaron a mute apology, clearly pitying the poor man
who had been elected to care for Ashley’s demented soul.

“And what manner of device be this?” Hancock’s slim fingers
toyed inquisitively with the zipper.

“A zipper. Here, it works like this.” The men leaned forward
as she ran the zipper open and closed two or three times.

“Zounds,” Revere breathed. “Amazing implement.”

“Yes...most amazing,” Adams agreed.

“And these other trifles?” Warren prompted, poking around
inside the cosmetic bag.

Ashley removed her compact, then eyeliner, mascara, blush,
and lipstick. Many of the objects were familiar to the men but the packaging
had them stumped. “Here. You want to know who I am? Here’s my driver’s license
and credit cards.” She shoved the plastic coated driver’s license into John
Hancock’s hand.

Revere’s gasp caught her attention. “A most incredible
miniature,” he breathed. “The workmanship is superb!”

Ashley glanced up to find him staring at her photo on the driver’s
license. “No, that’s a photograph.”

The men looked at her blankly. “Photograph?”

“A picture, taken by a camera.” Now they were completely
lost. “You know...you look through the lens and click the button, then print
it, or take the memory stick to the store and have them print the pictures.”

“Nay, we know nothing of this,” Warren admitted warily. The
men took a protective step back as if she had something catching.

The door burst open and the men whirled to find a young man
entering the room. He closed the door quickly behind him.

“Is there trouble?” Aaron broke from the group to stride
across the room and confront the boy.

“The Tories are moving.” The boy glanced questioningly at
Ashley.

“Choose your words carefully,” Revere warned. Taking the boy
aside, Paul conversed with him in hushed tones. A moment later he returned, his
features grave.

“It is as we fear, gentlemen.”

“The storm clouds are gathering,” Warren murmured. “I feel
the crackle of lightning in the air.”

Glancing at his pocket watch, Hancock said, “We must
disperse lest we invite unwelcome comment.”

“It is imperative that we maintain our scheduled time of
arrival and departure if we are to continue our pretense of a weekly game of
five and forty,” Warren agreed.

“Aaron, you and Mistress Wheeler take your leave first,
while the tavern is heavy with patronage,” Hancock directed.

“What shall we do about the hole in the roof?” Warren asked,
gazing upward at the large opening.

Picking up his tricornered hat, Aaron viewed Ashley coolly.
“Say nothing. I shall explain it.”

Her pulse jumped as his eyes skimmed her impersonally. He
was handsome, she’d give him that. And it wasn’t hard to see that he found his
assignment to escort her heartily disagreeable. Yet Ashley knew that a man like
Aaron Kenneman would do what he must.

“You will go with me quietly,” he said. “Not one word, or I
shall hand you to the first authority I see.”

The threat in his eyes was unmistakable. Ashley would do as
he said, or she would be cast to the wolves. Her choice was obvious. Dream or
no dream, she would cooperate.

Because she knew history, she knew there was a certain
desperation in these men. A quiet desperation that led men like Aaron Kenneman
to perform extraordinary acts.

Drawing herself up straighter, Ashley met Dr. Aaron
Kenneman’s autocratic gaze. “I’ll do as you say.”

Aaron nodded.

Well. The British were coming. What choice did she have? The
smell of cooking fat and scorched meat mixed with pipe tobacco and the odor of
unwashed bodies made Ashley’s stomach roll as Aaron steered her through the
small tavern.

Chapter
Three

The air was filled with the babble and boisterous laughter
of men sitting at small tables swilling rum from tall mugs.

Two buxom serving girls carried pots of hot mulled ale to a
group of men settled in front of the large fireplace. Smoke whirled and circled
as it drifted from the long-stemmed clay pipes that Ashley remembered were
called, ironically, church wardens.

As they made their way across the room, a few men raised
their hands to Aaron, calling his name in amiable greeting.

A man well into his cups lurched toward Ashley. Aaron pulled
her in front of himself as he continued to guide her through the crowd.

“Who’s the wench, Kenneman?” shouted a well-dressed man in
frock coat and breeches .

“She refuses to say!” Aaron called back good naturedly.
Ashley stiffened as Aaron’s grip tightened around her arm.

A slovenly looking chap at a nearby table removed a chewed
stick of snuff from his pocket and used it to massage his gums as he joined in the
ribald laughter.

“What a terrible thing to say,” Ashley accused. He was
making it sound as if she were a prostitute!

“You are to remain quiet, wench.”

“Stop calling me wench.”

He ignored her, hurrying her through the crowded room.

“I refuse to be treated this way,” she protested as she
struggled to keep pace with his long-legged stride.

“Hold your tongue,” he warned softly. “And keep moving. The
gentleman to your right seems to have developed an eye for you.”

Ashley darted between two tables to avoid contact with the
burly seaman who was clearly ogling her.

A stooped, white-haired man with a stained apron encasing
his slim hips straightened from a table where he had been talking with two
others. “Aye, Doctor! A trophy from th’ game?” he called out

“Aye, and a fine one,” Aaron called back. “Oh, Loyal? I’d do
something about that hole in your roof. It looks like falling weather.”

The innkeeper frowned, scratching his head. “Hole in me
roof?”

“Yes, and a rather large one,” Aaron said. “Should be
repaired immediately.”

“A hole in me roof?” Loyal was still scratching his head as
the good doctor pulled Ashley out the front door.

A large, ornately dressed man was just about to enter the
tavern as Ashley and Aaron emerged. The man paused, tipping his hat to Ashley
as she sidled around him and down the steps. Drawing a deep breath of fresh
air, she tried to rid her nostrils of the tavern’s stench.

Moving her along briskly to a dark bay tied at the hitching
rail, Aaron said, “Not a word as we ride through town. Understand?”

“Perfectly.” Did he think she was daft—well, yes, he did,
but she wasn’t. “Where are we going?”

“That needn’t concern you.”

Ashley viewed the horse anxiously. She’d never ridden a
horse before and wasn’t especially eager to start. “I don’t ride.”

“You do now.” After swinging easily into the saddle, he
extended his hand to her. Ashley placed her foot into the stirrup and groaned
as he pulled her up awkwardly behind him.

Grasping his waist, she gasped as the horse lurched forward.
“Slow down! I’ve never even been on a horse!”

“This is not a pleasure ride. Try to bear that in mind.”

The horse galloped off, and all Ashley could do was hang on,
praying that she would wake up and be done with this ghastly dream!

Boston in 1775 was an awesome spectacle. The gathering
twilight bathed the bustling town in a mellow coral glow as the horse galloped
through narrow, winding dirt streets. The odor of fish hung heavily in the air,
and Ashley could hear the muffled throb of ships laying at anchor in the
harbor.

Gazing about her in bewilderment, she found the skyline
flat, not the Boston she knew. The flurry of activity was far removed from the
midtown traffic to which she was accustomed. She could see candles being lit
inside quaint brick homes, and men carrying lanterns strode alongside the road.

To the right lay the harbor where she saw a tubby British
vessel with a hornlike head projecting from its bow. A smaller American craft,
built mainly for fishing and coastal trade, bobbed beside it in the water.
Ashley noticed the American ship had fewer square sails and more of the handy
fore and aft sails, which hung parallel to the keel.

Shouts suddenly drew her attention. Two ruffians were
engaged in a fistfight where a crowd was gathering. Street vendors ignored the
rowdy cutpurses as they went about crying their wares.

Ashley turned, gaping over her shoulder at what appeared to
be a pickled pirate’s head perched upon a pole for exhibition. As she grasped
Aaron tighter about the waist, she felt him urge the horse into a faster gait.

Curiosity mixed with wonder, astonishment, and apprehension
made her head swivel like a top as she took in the sights and sounds of
eighteenth-century Boston.

Ships were being unloaded at the docks and freight wagons
rumbled past, carrying what few goods were allowed to the merchants. Recalling
history again, Ashley knew the ships contained everything from turtles to
chandeliers. In 1775 the port of Boston had been closed to all commerce since
June 1 of the year before, until the city paid for the tea that the colonists
had dumped into the harbor. The tea had been worth thousands of dollars. The
boycott had been a great sacrifice for the colonists, for it meant that they
had to do without a great many things they’d thought necessary for living.

Ashley suddenly wondered if Aaron Kenneman had been involved
in the Boston Tea Party. She sat up straighter, about to ask him, then didn’t.
Paul Revere and the others had accused her of being Gage’s spy, and the
question would only arouse more suspicion. General Thomas Gage, she remembered,
was the new governor and commander-in-chief of the British forces in North
America, and he was assigned the task of enforcing the Boston Port Act.

Aaron was most likely one of the colonists who formed a
provincial congress at Concord to govern Massachusetts. That congress, she
knew, would force Gage’s raid on colonial military supplies in Lexington and
Concord within a few days.

She closed her eyes. This was absolutely the most absurd
dream she’d ever had. Why couldn’t she be dreaming that Hugh Jackman and Daniel
Craig were fighting over her, and, out of desperation, Mel Gibson kidnapped
her, then rushed her off to the Hawaiian Islands for a life of paradise?

Instead she found herself riding on the back of a horse
behind an American patriot in the eighteenth century, only days before Paul
Revere’s famous ride to warn the colonists that the British were about to
attack.

They emerged from the harbor area and entered the main part
of town. The air was putrid there. Gutters ran the lengths of the street,
forming open sewers. Slops and human filth had been tossed out the windows into
the gutter, and droves of wild hogs wallowed in the muck and fed on garbage
left to rot in the passageways between houses.

Ashley gasped as a man almost ran into the horse, another
man close behind him.

“Thief! Thief!” the second man shouted.

The horse darted around the man, forcing Ashley to grab hold
of Aaron’s coattail to avoid being dumped into the slimy muck.

“Cutpurse,” Aaron murmured more to himself than to her. He
deftly maneuvered the horse through the milling crowd. “Since the embargo has
lengthened, more and more people grow desperate.”

The horse galloped on as Ashley turned and watched the thief
being overtaken and thrown to the ground.

The horse continued through the town, up winding alleys and
down dark passageways. A church bell rang, signaling twilight. Ashley gazed up
at the unadorned meetinghouse. The frame building was painted a dull white, but
the belfry on the roof was lovely with its moldings and tall spires. The
classic columns in front were severely plain, yet they added a note of dignity
to the structure.

The horse rounded a corner, and Ashley slipped sideways in
the saddle. Aaron reached back to steady her, and she held on to him tighter,
trying to hitch herself up more solidly on the rump of the horse.

“How much farther?” she shouted. Her bottom was numb
already.

“Until we get there,” he called over his shoulder.

Turning down another alley, Aaron slowed the horse. Ashley’s
gaze quickly took in the painted signs of various size and ornateness, marking
the mercantile, a bank, a boardinghouse, and she shivered—the barred narrow
openings in a wall housing the jail. As they rounded a second corner, her eyes
caught the sign on the silversmith shop and she squealed. “The Silversmith
Shop: P. Revere, Prop.”

Paul Revere’s silver shop! Ashley remembered Revere’s
business was barely surviving in 1775 because of the worsening situation with
England. But then, Paul was a busy man. He was not only the leader of the Sons
of Liberty, a group that had found varied ways to oppose the English, but he
was Massachusetts’ number one express rider between Boston and Philadelphia.

Tugging at Aaron’s coat sleeve, she pointed to the shop.
“Look! It’s Paul Revere’s silversmith shop! I wonder if Rachel’s there!” Ashley
hoped the dream would allow her to meet a woman of the 1700s. There were so
many things she wanted to ask!

Aaron stiffened, glancing over his shoulder at her. “You
know Rachel?”

“Well, not personally, of course. But I’ve read—”

She saw the muscle in his left jaw working tightly. “You’ve
read what?”

It was more of a statement than a question, reminding Ashley
that women didn’t read anything of substance in 1775. It was not thought
proper. But women’s roles had changed drastically since Aaron Kenneman’s day,
and Ashley wasn’t going to lie to him.

“I’ve read that Paul took over his father’s silversmith
business when he was only fifteen.”

“And?”

“And awhile later he married his first wife, Sara Orne. Paul
and Sara had six children—plus two who died at birth.”

Aaron swore impatiently.

But Ashley went on with her recitations as if she were in no
danger of being throttled. ‘The surviving children’s names were Deborah, Paul
Jr., Sara, Mary...and Francine...no, it was Frankie...no, maybe it was Faith,
no—”

“Frances!” Aaron snapped.

“Yes! That’s it, Frances, and Elizabeth.”

“Your memory serves you well,” Aaron said shortly. The woman
was a witch. First she babbled about things that made no sense; now she was
babbling about things that were true. Yet she claimed she was not a spy. “You
know much about a man you profess to have never met,” he accused.

Aaron scowled as he thought about her wealth of knowledge.
Was it possible Paul knew this woman? Could he be romantically linked with her?
Of course not. Aaron dismissed the thought as worthless. He’d never known Paul
to be a womanizer. Paul didn’t have the time.

“I only know what I’ve read,” Ashley repeated stoically,
knowing it was a waste of time to argue with a dream.

“Perhaps you only have visions,” Aaron suggested, and none
too kindly.

“Visions?” She laughed softly. “No, I don’t have visions. I
must have eaten pepperoni before I went to bed.” Yes, that would explain it.
She had eaten pepperoni again. Pepperoni invariably caused her to have
nightmares.

Aaron turned slightly in the saddle to glance at her.
“You’re talking gibberish again.”

Ashley sighed. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand, even if
I could explain.” His eyes returned to the road, but she noticed him deep in
thought, as if her were trying to choose more careful words instead of getting
frustrated.

“Those who have a strange turn of mind often see things
others cannot.” He didn’t deny Ashley Wheeler was lovely, though she did babble
incessant nonsense.

“You think I’m crazy.”

“Mayhap not mentally deranged, but there are those
individuals who brew spells and potions and often profess to see things others
don’t.”

“Oh, you think I’m a witch.”

“You deny that you are?”

“Would it do any good if I did?”

 “Tell me more of what you have ‘read,’ ” he mocked.

They were riding down an open road now. The horse’s gait
slowed as they wound along what was little more than a dirt path. The woman’s
knowledge both fascinated and annoyed Aaron, but he found himself powerless to
cease his questioning.

“You and the colonists think King George is quite a nice
fellow, but he isn’t.” She grinned as she felt him grow tense again.
“Everyone’s blaming Parliament for the mess the country’s in when it’s really
King George and the head of the English treasury demanding more and more of
your money.”

“You have ‘read’ this,” he scoffed.

“I read it,” she verified happily. Oh, he was a handsome
rascal, but his lack of respect for her knowledge annoyed her. “Dr. Kenneman,
in spite of the general opinion that women are made only for the delight and
pleasure of a man, we do have brains. A woman of the nineties no longer has
merely to parrot a man’s views,” she took pleasure in informing him.

“The nineties? Fifteen years from now?”

“No, two-hundred and fifteen years from now.”

He turned to look at her again.

She grinned. “You don’t believe me?”

“There is nothing worse than a sharp-tongued woman with a
higher opinion of herself than can be substantiated.”

She pinched his ribs. “Listen, buddy. If this wasn’t a
dream, you would be talking an octave higher right about now for that kind of
chauvinist remark.” This doesn’t offend me, but it might others, think about it

Wincing, he shook his head in wonder. “What manner of wench
are you?”

She was tempted to tell him, but even in a dream, it would
be a little impertinent on her part. But one more macho remark like that one,
and he was asking for it.