Mistress Firebrand (23 page)

Severin marked the man, in case things turned violent. Body language and bearing distinguished the young officer as a real threat—his bite, likely, as bad as his bark.

He supposed there was some justice in what was happening. Severin had planned raids like this for General Howe, with these very men: Harcourt’s 16th Light Dragoons, created two decades earlier by Gentleman Johnny to fight the French in Spain and Portugal. Burgoyne’s hand in their origins showed in their decidedly theatrical uniforms: scarlet coats with striking blue wool facings, gold lace, leather helmets sporting leopard-fur turbans and bearskin crests. Light horse units were an innovation borrowed from European cavalry—light, as their name indicated, fast, and damnably effective. The sort of swift, nimble,
tactical
unit he had advised Howe to use to break him out of Simsbury.

His uncle stepped forward and addressed the cornet. “It’s me you want.”

Severin very much doubted it. Kidnapping high-ranking Rebels was one of Howe’s favorite tactics, but Solomon Harkness did not rate the risk of sending a troop of horse deep into enemy territory. They were here for him.

“And who are you, exactly?” asked a voice from the hall, cultured, melodious.

The speaker was no dragoon. Severin did not know him. He wore the uniform of a captain in the 26th, that much-depleted regiment that had come to deal with the Stamp Riots in ’67 and never left. His
coat was scarlet with a yellow collar, turndowns, and cuffs; silver buttons; and a silver gilt epaulet on one shoulder. His coal black hair was neatly clubbed, and his gold-flecked hazel eyes were quick and alert, taking stock of the room and its occupants, before coming to rest on Harkness.

Severin had devoutly wished to leave his former life, but he knew he must take up its trappings again now if he was to have any hope of saving his family.

“He’s no one,” said Severin, in the disaffected drawl he had perfected in London clubs and gambling halls. “A local functionary receiving a stipend for my keep. It is me you are here for, I presume.”

The reasons didn’t matter. There were only so many possibilities, none of them good. It was possible that the Lebanon Committee of Safety had a spy in their midst, someone who had told Howe that Severin had turned coat, informed the general that one of his spies was in the hands of the Americans with a head full of valuable secrets. Or it was possible that this was some machination orchestrated by Angela Ferrers, to remove him from the playing field once and for all. Or most remotely, perhaps the post had been exceedingly slow and Howe had only lately opened his mail.

Would-be saviors or no, on balance, Severin’s chances of getting out of this seemed rather poor. The important thing was protecting the people who
had
saved him, who had delivered him from hell, given him a place to recover, reflect, and find his way. A lump rose in his throat at the thought of anything happening to his family. He vowed that he would not allow it.

The handsome captain bowed to Devere, his formal manner at odds with the rustic simplicity of the
kitchen, and said, “My apologies, Colonel. My name is André, and I would have come sooner, but your letter languished at headquarters due to certain deficiencies on the general’s staff. By the time I arrived and read it, you were no longer at Simsbury. You are, in fact, a damnably difficult fellow to find.”

“Surely not as difficult as all that,” said Severin.

“No,” admitted Captain André. “You are quite right, sir. There was gross incompetence involved as well.” His eyes flickered over the Harkness family. “Is there someplace we might talk in private?”

“There’s a parlor,” said Severin.

“Excellent,” interjected the young cornet who had ordered the door knocked down, as though he was an invited guest. “Perhaps there might be some refreshment for the men?” He looked at Molly meaningfully, and Severin’s aunt nodded, her face perfectly blank as she stepped cautiously toward the cupboard.

“Shall we?” said André, gesturing for Severin to lead the way. The cornet showed no inclination to follow, appearing more than happy to leave his superiors to whatever clandestine business they were about.

Severin guided the glittering captain through the darkened keeping room to the parlor, where his aunt’s curtains and embroidery were on display—where Severin very much wished he might use some of his hard-won skills to kill this elegant intruder—but that would help no one at all. Severin was not quite prepared to believe that this young man represented the rescue he had once longed for, and no longer wanted. He must know more.

When they were seated at the little table, and his aunt had made up the fire and left them two glasses
and a bottle of her very worst local whiskey, André waited until the door closed before speaking.

“I won’t make excuses for the abominable treatment you have received, because we both know quite well there aren’t any,” said André, pouring. “I spent the last year in captivity myself, though my circumstances”—he gestured to indicate the room—“were not so pleasant.”

“As it happens, Simsbury,” replied Severin, “was not nearly as homely.”

“No,” agreed André. “I am certain it was not. What did you give the Americans to extricate yourself?”

Severin shrugged. “Fictions mostly, and a few truths they already knew, to make the whole convincing.”

“There are those who will say that such a long captivity would tax any man’s powers of invention.”

Severin knew what the man was hinting at: that he had turned, and of course he had, but hopefully he was good enough to convince this fellow otherwise. “I would reply that I had extraordinary leisure in which to exercise my creativity.”

“Just so.” André nodded. “And I am deeply sorry for it. Had I been with General Howe when you were taken, I would have acted, but his adjutant general is Gage’s brother-in-law, Stephen Kemble, whose chief qualification for the job is that everyone wants to fuck his sister.”

It was crude talk after spending so many months in a household where a man and a woman lived companionably with each other, where Severin had fallen asleep more than once to the soft sound of the bed ropes sighing in the room next door and had envied that kind of deep and lasting happiness.

“I met Kemble in Boston,” said Severin. “If he had other qualifications, they escaped me. He prefers running and relying on spies to cultivating informants, and hasn’t a clue how to turn disaffected Rebels into useful allies.”

“Such was my assessment as well. Unfortunately, I lack the connections to rise to such high office with so little acumen, so I must advance by hard work alone. I have studied your career, and I hope you will not take it amiss if I confess that certain of my own ambitions have been shaped by your failures. I mean to replace Kemble as adjutant general in North America, and I intend to do it by capturing the Rebel agent known as the Widow.”

So Severin had been right to doubt his government’s belated recognition of his service. This man had not been
sent
at all: he had come because Severin could be useful to him. It explained the midnight ride into enemy territory.

“You want my help,” said Severin.

“I would value your guidance,” flattered André. “I understand you bedded her in Boston.”

Severin was no longer sure who had bedded whom, but he
was
certain that he had been discreet and that his tryst with the Widow was not an easy piece of intelligence to come by. This Captain André was a very dangerous young man, decided Severin. “I do not suggest that particular method for getting close to the woman.”

“But you did get close to her. What was she like?”

He had asked about the Widow, but despite the fact that Severin had bedded her—with some brio, in fact—she herself had somehow become indistinct in
his memory. It was Jenny whom he could recall with crystal clarity: the copper of her hair, the music of her voice, the lithe curves of her body.

“Ruthless,” answered Severin at last.

“Do you sketch, Colonel?”

“No.”

The young man looked slightly surprised. “It is a useful skill for men in our profession.”

“My chief expertise lies in handwriting,” replied Severin.

André smiled. “I had heard that. It may yet be useful. Perhaps, though, for the moment you could describe her to me. A portrait in words.”

“Tall,” said Severin, though he was not sure that was exactly true. She had given the appearance of height, but so did Frances Leighton, her mentor in the theater, and the Divine Fanny was almost as petite as her niece.

“Pale and beautiful, in face and form.” Though, again, artifice might enhance or conceal those features with relative ease.

“Fair haired.” That much he was certain of, unless she dyed
all
of her hair.

“
Athletic
. She has forged herself into a formidable opponent. Underestimate her at your peril.”

“And yet, she has weaknesses. Liabilities.
Connections
in New York. Or so your letter indicated.”

The letter he had written when he still thought that he mattered to William Howe, to Lord Germain, to the system he had devoted his life to maintaining and that had left him to die in the cold and dark. He had no intention of giving Frances Leighton to this
ambitious, calculating man. To the government’s latest willing agent.

“Why now?” asked Severin. “Howe has had twelve months to find and deal with the Widow, and while we may flatter ourselves that his capacity for intelligence work was much diminished by our respective captivities and absences, surely there are fresher leads than my year-old encounter with the woman.”

“Trenton,” said André. “She was all but invisible for the last year. There was talk of her being in Cambridge and in Salem, but then nothing, until Trenton. One thousand Hessians captured, the Jerseys lost to us, on what should have been the morning of our victory in America. Our ‘Merry’ Widow turned up in Mount Holly and ensorcelled one rather sentimental Jaeger colonel into tarrying there for three crucial days, with all of his forces. But for her, we would not have lost Trenton.”

Oh, Angela,
thought Devere.
And I imagined we had something special.
He hoped the poor German bastard had gotten away with his ribs intact. Jenny had been right: he did admire the woman. He hated her a little too, but he definitely admired her.

“You were resourceful enough to find me,” observed Severin. “Surely you have been able to identify at least some members of her network.”

“I have,” said André. “Unfortunately, they are so well placed that they are currently untouchable. I need new leads. You tracked her in Boston and managed to meet with her. She attempted to have you killed in New York. She
succeeded
in getting you immured in Simsbury. That means you had contact with at least one of her disciples.”

“Such encounters do not usually compass a polite exchange of introductions.”

“But you no doubt have your suspicions as to whom she might have used.”

“Suspicions that are a year old, and wholly unconfirmed,” said Severin.

“And naturally you wish to pursue them yourself, to allay any doubt as to where your loyalties lie after so long a captivity. I understand. That is why I have brought this.”

He drew a pamphlet from his pocket and placed it on the table. “In Boston, I believe, you discovered the true identity of the writer of
The Blockheads
and recommended the Warren woman’s arrest, but Howe moved too slowly and she slipped our grasp.”

“I did.” It was one of the many things he had done for Howe, who had not repaid his loyalty.

“This,” said André, tapping the pamphlet, “is very much of a piece with that business—though, unfortunately, it is an altogether more effective, and popular, bit of propaganda.”

He slid the booklet across the table and Severin glanced at the cover. It was an unbound play printed on cheap paper:
The Miles Gloriosus in a New Translation for American Audiences.
Severin affected disinterest while his heart pounded in his chest with sick anticipation.

“The damnable thing is
everywhere
,” said André with some asperity. “We have confiscated thousands of copies in the coffeehouses, but it is impossible to suppress. Students perform it and wags quote from it and scenes are recited in parlors from Williamsburg to Albany. Copies and reprints have even reached London.”

The captain sat back, steepling his fingers. “The
title character is a very thinly veiled version of John Burgoyne, who is incensed and has vowed to hang the author. General Howe and he both blame it for the poor turnout in loyalist support, although I do not entirely credit their assessment of that situation. Americans are, as a people, not much given to loyalty.”

“It is a play, for heaven’s sake,” said Devere, ignoring the jibe. “An entertainment, like a Punch-and-Judy show. If Burgoyne ignored it, the thing would fade into obscurity. Vowing to hang the scribbler is like printing a thousand handbills. It inflames public curiosity. Cry ‘sedition’ and every fashionable young buck in America will decide he
needs
a copy.”

“Quite so. No doubt Burgoyne’s advisers told him as much, but wiser heads did not prevail. And the thing has struck an uncomfortable chord. Read the bit where Jack Brag recruits the savages to plunder the frontier.”

Severin flipped through the play, trying to ignore the feelings stirred by the familiarities of phrase and style.
Oh, Jenny.
Let this be coincidence only: my mind reading too much into these printed words.

He found it easily enough, a speech before a crowd, a bit of bombast that was a very good imitation of Gentleman Johnny’s oratory, in which he exhorts the Indians to chastise the wicked Rebels. And, reading it, hope died. Severin knew all too well where the author had gotten the idea: from the plans she—
Jenny
—had stolen from his cabin and given to Angela Ferrers.

“Much of this strikes me less as sedition and more as perspicacious
observation
,” said Severin, casually, tapping the very passage with one finger. “It is no secret that Burgoyne wishes to employ natives in his campaign. And it is not sedition to call that what it is: a terrible idea.”