Mistress Firebrand (11 page)

She’d heard no word of sabotage aboard the
Boyne
in New York, but it explained the ship’s sudden arrival and odd behavior. “And was it?” she asked. “Directed at Burgoyne?”

“I believe so. I thought your invitation to the theater might be part of another plot. The second one certainly was.”

“I did not send a second invitation.” Bobby had, but she would not tell Devere that.

“I knew you were no plotter from our first meeting, but you have proved far more dangerous to Burgoyne than the Rebels.”

If all his aid had been a ploy to get her away from the
Boyne
and prying eyes, if he meant to do away with her here on the open water, there was little enough to stop him. Aunt Frances always carried a small knife and she owned a muff pistol. Jenny had thought these charming eccentricities. Now she realized they might be sensible precautions for a woman who thought to make her own way in the world. Tomorrow, she would buy a pistol. If she had a tomorrow.

“Are you really going to take me home?”

He stopped rowing. Waves buffeted the still boat. The hair on the back of her neck rose and her heart raced.

“What exactly did your aunt tell you about me?”

Her mouth felt dry. The chill of the night penetrated her thin gown. She must tread carefully here. “That you were here to protect Burgoyne.”

“I am. We both know that isn’t why you’re so afraid.”

“She said you are a spy.”

“Half of New York is selling information about the Rebels to the officers who are living—not particularly secretly—at the King’s Arms. Half of those supposed loyalists are also reporting the movements of those officers to the Rebels. And many of the transactions are taking place in your greenroom. You cannot be oblivious to it all, and so I beg leave to doubt my intelligence work worries you much either.”

She wasn’t oblivious to it, and he was right. “Aunt Frances said you kill people.”

He didn’t answer all at once. Then he said, “Is that all that is frightening you right now, about being alone with me in the middle of the harbor? That I . . . work for the government?”

“The customs man
works
for the government. What you do is something else.”

For some reason this amused him, and he smiled. “Would it help to know that I don’t go around indiscriminately slaughtering innocents?”

“In the present circumstances, I’m not certain that I should feel any safer with a discriminating murderer.”

“And yet you felt safe with me in the slot.”

“‘Safe’ is not the word I would use to describe how I felt.”

His gaze raked her and she wondered for a moment if he had felt it too.
Caught up in something irresistible
. Then finally he said, “There is hardly time—if there should ever be a time—for a résumé of my career. But any killing I’ve done has involved direct threats to the safety and security of His Majesty’s subjects.”

“I thought the
law
was supposed to deal with those who threatened public safety, and—come to that—I brained one of His Majesty’s major generals in his private apartments.”

“I act when the law cannot work swiftly enough, or when public opinion or misplaced delicacy might prevent justice from taking its course.” His voice was measured. “As for Burgoyne—well, he got exactly what he deserved. But we both know how difficult that would be to prove in court.”

Because juries thought just like the general. “That still doesn’t explain why you are helping me.”

“I am helping you,” he said, taking up the oars once more, “because I try to take some responsibility for my mistakes. This was my fault. I knew you weren’t as worldly as your aunt.”

“I understood what Burgoyne wanted,” she said quietly.

“The bruises on your wrist argue otherwise.”

“I thought I could go through with it, but I couldn’t. But it was too late by then. You must think me very naive.” She certainly felt so. The footlights at Drury Lane did not burn so bright in her imagination now, and she marveled at how easily she had mistaken the provincial insecurities of New York’s merchant elite for sophistication.

“For the most part, there is no such thing as ‘too late.’ That is an excuse men use for behaving like animals, or as cowards. I think you simply discovered there are limits to your ambition. Better to understand them now than when it may be
truly
too late, and you can no longer change your path.”

Like Aunt Frances.
“Rousseau would tell you it was inevitable. That a woman who will sell herself in performance to an audience of hundreds must do the same for an audience of one. That she cannot resist the impulse to satisfy the passions she stirs.”

“That,” said Devere, “suggests a sadly narrow understanding, of both women and passion.”

When they reached the dock, he helped her from the boat. It was a marked contrast from her embarkation with the dispassionate lieutenant. For a moment she could still feel the roll and pitch of the water, and Devere grasped her waist to steady her. It was far less intimate than his touch had been in the slots, and yet somehow more so. The gesture was so unexpected that she looked up into his eyes, and found them full of concern—and remorse.

That was when she knew she was safe with him. Or at least safe
from
him.

The city at night could be treacherous. Devere understood that. He had come armed. For her part, she had never been to the docks this late, never seen them so deserted. The moon was up but the tall warehouses, dark and shuttered, cast deep shadows over the quay and the daytime smells of hemp and tar and hot pitch had given way to that of rancid cooking oil and rotted fish and brine.

Devere released her as soon as she stopped swaying. She opened her mouth to thank him, but he motioned for silence and scanned the wharf, listening intently. She checked the timepiece hanging from the ribbon at her waist. Incredibly, it was not yet nine.

“Where do you live?” he asked softly.

“With Aunt Frances. Above the greenroom at the John Street,” she said. “But I can’t go home yet.”

“Why not?”

“Bobby forbade me to meet with Burgoyne. He will toss me out of the company if he discovers I went to the
Boyne
.”

Devere raised one black eyebrow. “And just where does he think you are now?”

“Sick in bed.”

“
Above
the greenroom, in which no doubt Mr. Hallam is at this very moment entertaining his patrons.”

“Yes.”

It was possible that her luck had run out. Her troubles with Bobby Hallam were all of her own making and no problem of Severin Devere’s. He had gotten her off the
Boyne
and saved her from hanging. He owed her nothing more.

Most men would not think that he had even owed her that. Particularly when she had gone blithely to Burgoyne after what had happened between them in the slots. Devere would be within his rights to leave her here on the wharf at the mercy of the thieves and cutpurses who roamed the New York streets at night. A
lady
might merit an escort to her door, but a provincial actress—a prudish would-be trollop, an overambitious barnyard player—surely did not.

*   *   *

Severin knew that Jennifer Leighton deserved better than to be cast out of her home and her profession for a folly he had engineered, and which
he
should have prevented.

When she had emerged from Burgoyne’s cabin, head held high and lips pressed firmly together—if they trembled at all, she’d hid it well—he’d felt pure admiration for her nerve. Then he had seen the bruises on her wrist, and he’d felt something else entirely.

It had been difficult to enter that cabin and handle the unconscious Burgoyne without losing control, but brutalizing Gentleman Johnny would do nothing to help Jennifer Leighton. Quite the contrary.

“How long,” he asked, “until it will be possible to smuggle you back into your lodgings?”

She checked the little watch pinned to her petticoat. “Two hours, possibly three. Aunt Frances plays cards late into the wee hours, but Bobby usually goes home by midnight or so.”

He considered their options. After Fairchild’s warning, it would be foolhardy to show his face in any of the Rebel taverns. “The King’s Arms,” he decided,
arranging her hood to cover her copper bright hair. If he could deliver her that far, Courtney could see her the rest of the way home.

And if something befell him on the way back to the dock, at least Jennifer Leighton would be safely out of the mess he had gotten her into. He’d left strict instructions with Hartwell to sail without him if he did not return. Severin’s possessions were to be locked in his trunk and sent ashore to his man of business in New York, a precaution he always took when he knew his life was in danger. And Burgoyne would be safely away, bound for England.

“With any luck,” he said, “no one will recognize you, and you can wait out Bobby Hallam in relative comfort.”

A long stretch of shuttered warehouses lay between them and the King’s Arms. The storehouses of New York’s merchant princes were not the treasure vaults of Boston or Philadelphia, stacked to the rafters with tea and silk and spices. They were not patrolled by night watchmen or prowled by guard dogs. They held spars and cordage and rice and pots and pans, and the prosaic manufactured necessities of everyday life that the colonists were required to import from England. Very little was portable or profitable enough to attract thieves. All this made the warehouse district extremely safe for kettles and copper pots, but decidedly less so for a man and a woman on foot.

They had gone less than a block when he began to suspect they were being followed.

Jennifer Leighton noticed as well.

“There are footpads behind us,” said the girl.

“I know,” he said quietly. “Follow my lead and keep
step with me.” He hoped that they were ordinary footpads, street thieves with good sense who would give up when it became apparent that Devere and his companion were not easy targets.

They were not street thieves. Twice, Severin sped up and slowed down. Jennifer Leighton kept pace with him both times. And so did the men following them.

That was a bad sign. Jennifer Leighton’s skills from the stage, her ability to match her movement opposite other players, enabled her to anticipate and mirror him, as though they were partners in a dance.

Petty thieves opportunistically prowling the docks for a rich purse would not have shown to such advantage. They would not have sped up and slowed down in tandem with Devere. They would not exhibit such canny caution when stalking one man and a small girl. They would not take such care to keep an even, measured distance between themselves and their prey.

They would have pounced. The girl’s rich dress, the gold watch pinned to her gown, the silk of her petticoats would have excited their avarice. Real footpads would not risk letting such rich prizes get away.

Which indicated that these men were waiting for something. An ambush, most likely. Severin should be able to handle two armed men, so long as they did not have pistols at the ready. If those men wished to make a nice quiet job of it, they would use clubs or knives. But he did not care for his odds against a greater number. That meant he had to engage these two and dispatch them here in this block, preferably without alerting their confederates.

It would not be easy. If the Widow had hired them, they would be very, very good, and difficult to draw
into a fight not of their making. If he had been by himself, his chances of luring them close would have been poor, but he was not alone.

He spared a glance at his companion. Jennifer Leighton had kept her head about her on the
Boyne
, and she appeared to be doing so now. Growing up on the frontier and in the forests of New York, Severin had known women every bit as capable and brave as men, but when he had returned to English society he’d been introduced to a more cosseted notion of femininity. Jennifer Leighton was neither pioneer nor English lady. She might be an asset or a liability in this fight. It was time to discover which.

“They are after me,” he said evenly, careful not to speak too loudly or urgently or give any indication that he was aware of their pursuers. “But they will very likely kill you,” he said, “to make a clean job of it.”

“How do you know that?” she asked. There was no quaver in her voice, just genuine inquiry. That was good.

“Because I am in the same trade. If you will trust me, I can deal with these two before we find ourselves outnumbered.”

“You think there are more of them.”

“I’m rather sure of it.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Giggle, stumble, and then follow my lead.”

“Actresses
hate
being given line readings, Mr. Devere,” she said, and then giggled, her convincing laughter a counterpoint to her tart retort.

She stumbled, throwing her whole body into it fearlessly, and he felt a rush of genuine admiration for the girl. Indeed, she would have fetched up on the
cobbles if he had not caught her. Her performance was as convincing as any spy’s imposture.

He steadied her, hands gripping her waist, the stays firm beneath his grasp, and swung her into the shadows of the nearest warehouse door.

“What is my motive in the scene?” she asked quietly.

He had not done this in so very long, worked side by side with someone else. Not since he and his brother had hunted together as boys, tutored by Ashur Rice in the dense forests of New York. They’d shared the thrill of spotting and tracking deer, of bringing home meat for the table.

His hands were still on her. Unnecessary, but gratifying.

“Your motive and aim, Miss Leighton, is that of a mercenary trollop: to distract me with the promise of passion, and then to liberate the gold in my pocket.” He backed her against the door, as a man might a cheap harlot he meant to enjoy quickly, and he was shocked when he felt her small, capable hands sliding into the pockets of his waistcoat.

His body responded. To her touch, to the scenario he himself had suggested, and to the threat of danger. He well understood how often violence and passion marched hand in hand. Images flashed through his mind, of Jennifer Leighton, gown unpinned, head thrown back, spine arched,
his
. He swallowed and banished such visions from his thoughts.