The Constable's Tale (21 page)

Someone began vigorously poking his back. Really hammering, as if with a closed fist. He turned to see a man of advanced years in a faded yellow woolen jacket, which looked too warm for the season, and a peruke that had gone for some time without benefit of powder.

“Do you mind yielding the ladle?” he said when he was sure he had Harry’s attention. Harry handed it over, realizing that he had been holding it for a good while.

“My name is Hansen,” he said as he dipped out a portion of punch. “I own this place. While you are in my house, you must not hog the punch bowl.”

“My apologies,” said Harry. “By the way, I thought the house belonged to that man over there.” He gestured toward the dance floor, where the Pearsons were expertly stepping to the music.

“Lived here most of my life,” Hansen said, paying no notice. “Made my fortune in trading furs with the Indians. I treated those men like my own children, and they loved me for it. Never gave me a bit of trouble, except for the odd petty theft here and there.” He shrugged, spilling a little punch on his waistcoat. “I never made any fracas, as the youngsters say. Just wrote it down as a cost of making money.”

A young woman came up and in a proprietary manner began leading Hansen away. Harry returned her sad smile with an understanding nod.

He felt the punch coming together with the rum from earlier in the evening and making common cause. Fresh air seemed called for. Something head clearing for the carriage ride back into Boston. A meeting with the baroness did not seem out of the question, either. He found himself wanting to be sober enough to put words together should that come about.

When he had arrived at the mansion, he had noticed a balcony on the third floor; as good a place as any to air out.

The climb up the staircase attested to his condition. He was all but breathless and staggering by the time he reached the top. Shadows from wall candles played about the hallway as he made his way to the door he judged led to the balcony. He knocked softly and, getting no reply, opened it and walked in.

It was a large room, also fitfully lit. The walls lined from floor to coffered ceiling with books. At one end was a hearth nearly large enough to walk into. In front of it, a reading table. A sofa and chairs occupied the middle of the room, and at the end opposite the fireplace was the balcony he had seen from the front, its opening half concealed behind partially drawn curtains.

He stepped through the veils and outside. Below, a line of carriages waited, lit by large basket-shaped torches atop poles dug into the ground at intervals. From this angle Harry could fully appreciate the grandeur of the grounds, the care with which they were laid out. A fortune’s worth of plantings and labor. The air was cooler than what he was used to in North Carolina at this time of year, a season that, he realized, was quickly slipping by. It was the beginning of the third week of August. Mild ends of summers were among the rewards of living in New England, he supposed. He shuddered to think how cold it must get. But with a fireplace such as he had just seen, he imagined no one in the Pearson family suffered.

“Harry?” said a tuneful voice behind him. The second syllable of his name given the playful lilt that had charmed him once before. With a rustle of taffeta, Jacqueline stepped onto the balcony.

“I saw you leave and followed as soon as I could. It would have been terrible to miss a chance to say hello.”

Harry said the first thing that came into his mind. “Where’s the governor?”

“Oh, Tom is busy with some of the other men at the punch bowl. He is a dear, but the price one pays for keeping company with great men is abandonment at the drop of a glove.”

“I’m surprised to see you in Boston. I thought you loved Virginia now.”

“I wouldn’t rule out returning there someday. But I’ve just been offered a position here through a friend. I’ll be teaching the French language to children of a good family.”

“Your friends move in high circles. How long have you known Mister Pownall?”

“I met Tom when I was part of the Shirley household. He and William were political enemies. But William is gone now.” She said something in French, then translated, “Life continues.”

Harry felt a stab of jealousy and in the next instant realized how mistaken it was. He had no more claim to Jacqueline’s affections than to Maddie’s.

“I suppose this might grow into something more?” he could not resist asking. “With the governor, I mean? Or maybe it already has?”

“Tom is a sweet man. And I won’t be shy: we’ve had our moments, even before William left. But I doubt Tom will ever be interested in anything permanent. He’s too much the sport.”

She sat down on the balcony’s sole piece of furniture, a rattan sofa with overstuffed cushions. Giving Harry a tantalizing glimpse of the swell of breasts. She took Harry’s hand and pulled him down beside her. “Now, tell me how you have fared since Williamsburg. Have you found your killer?”

He summed up his activities since leaving Williamsburg, how his search had led him to Philadelphia, then Boston. The road seeming to end here. Except he now knew something about the inscription on the brooch.

“I feel I’m very near to figuring out its meaning. I grasp the way the code was made. It’s only left to learn a secret word that is the key to unlocking it, but so far I’ve had no success. The truth is I may be no closer to finding the Campbells’ killer than the day I rode out from New Bern.”

She turned and looked directly into his eyes. “Here is what I think, Harry. I fear that as close as you are to learning that secret, you are just that close to terrible danger.”

“You may be right. People have tried to kill me twice now. Once in Maryland and again aboard my ship to Boston.”

Jacqueline inhaled sharply. “I knew it. Did you recognize your attackers? Have you any idea who sent them?”

“Robbery can’t be ruled out as a reason the first time. My friend Noah Burke—you met him in Williamsburg—was with me. He was carrying a great deal of money, something I didn’t even know until later. He was killed, but they got no money. The second attack—the one on the ship—is a complete mystery.”

As he spoke he wondered how closely Jacqueline was listening. Her eyes seemed preoccupied with his lips. Following their movements. Her eyes dark and liquid in the moonlight. Reflections from the torches below playing over them.

“Harry,” she said when he was finished, “I won’t pretend. I’ve thought of you often since we parted. Have you thought of me?”

Without waiting for an answer, she touched his hand. Her breath was warm on his neck. Suddenly it seemed the world beyond the balcony was falling away, leaving him and this strangely beautiful woman slowly tumbling through a void. Adrift in a universe far from New England, America, the earth itself. A world where he was unmarried and had no responsibilities, no concern other than satisfying his hunger to run his hands over Jacqueline’s unclothed body. Feel her pressing against him. In this new world, he had the power to keep this rare prize for himself, to will it so that she would never again know the touch of another man.

They kissed, more furiously than lovingly. Bumping, squeezing, grappling. The sleeves of Jacqueline’s gown slipping farther down her shoulders as the struggle went on. He fumbled with the buttons at her back. She seemed to be trying to wriggle away, which only increased his determination to hold her fast. Suddenly she somehow
managed to bring her hands together at his chest and push him back. Hard. It seemed she was strong as well as lovely.

“No, Harry,” she said, more a breathy plea than a command. He retreated, the reality of who he was and what he was doing intruding into his dream.

“I am so sorry,” he began. But she put her hand to his lips.

“My love, there is a way we can be together without betraying your wife. Do you remember how?”

Before he could answer, she was unbuttoning his breeches.

CHAPTER 21

81: Be not Curious to Know the Affairs of Others neither approach those that Speak in Private.

—R
ULES OF
C
IVILITY

HE WOKE UP TO VOICES. HUSHED CONVERSATION. MEN. TWO OR THREE
of them from the sound of it, talking in low tones inside the great room. Plainly unaware of anyone on the balcony. Harry lay sprawled on the sofa, clothes in disarray, his now-flaccid manhood in full view of the starry sky. It was becoming a habit. Forbidden pleasure, the slumber of the sinful, then abandoned.

Taking care not to make a stirring of the sofa’s rattan weavings, he got up and rebuttoned himself and straightened out his waistcoat.
His borrowed jacket, which he had taken such care not to crease, lay crumpled on the floor. He slipped into it.

His first thought was to announce himself to whomever was there, then just walk in. But he had no idea how long they had been there. If he suddenly appeared now, they might assume he had been eavesdropping the whole time they had been talking. A natural assumption and hard to disprove. None of the rules he could think of came close to covering this situation. He tried to imagine Judge McLeod’s reaction if news reached him that his renegade constable had been caught spying on somebody.

While thinking on his next move, he could not help but pick up snatches of the conversation, which was increasing in volume. Probably a sign they were just settling into it. Something about the war in Canada. General Wolfe and the troubles he was having with the French. Overcome by curiosity, he squatted on his haunches and peeked around the curtain. A trick Comet Elijah had taught him. Stay low to the ground and motionless when surveying from hiding. Most people do not look below eye level unless movement draws their attention.

In the candlelight he could see Governor Pownall, High Sheriff Loring, and the militia officer, Browning. Loring was standing with his back turned, facing the sofa, where the other two were sitting. Harry took this tableau back with him as he returned his head to behind the curtain.

“Marie may well have been the one who enabled Montcalm’s lucky guesses,” the militia major was saying. There was a pause, a rustling of fabric. Then Pownall said, “I’ve long thought Shirley himself incompetent and seldom miss an opportunity to say so, but I’ve never believed he was an outright traitor. That is inconceivable.”

“But his little Parisian whore might be another story,” said Browning.

“Wife,” corrected Loring.

“A tawdry substitute for Lady Frances.” Browning again. “God rest her soul.”

Pownall said, “If Montcalm did indeed have an agent in our midst, we can’t disallow the possibility it was Marie. As far as I know, she remains a practicing papist to this day.”

“Well, with the Shirleys tucked away in London, there’s not much harm the woman can do now,” said the sheriff.

“There’s talk he is to be posted off to Nassau,” said Pownall. “God willing, he can do little further damage to British interests there other than bugger up passports.”

“I suspect we yet have a turncoat in our midst,” said Browning. “Amherst should have driven off the French by now, what with all the redcoats and cannonballs he has at his disposal.”

“Montcalm has spies everywhere,” said Loring. “Me and my boys are ever on the watch for doubtful sorts lurking about the docks and billets.”

Browning said, “One can go only so far guessing the enemy’s aims just by watching movements of troops and ships. The best information comes from someone with entrée to high levels.”

“It is certainly possible, even likely, there was a spy at some point,” said Pownall, “but I have the impression Whitehall believes the issue has been dealt with. My latest communications with the Leader indicate no continuing concern about any high-ranking traitor.”

“At three thousand miles’ remove from Canada, Mister Pitt can more easily afford disconcern,” said Browning. “A front-line soldier may be forgiven his suspicions.”

After a moment Pownall said, “Are you still leaving tomorrow?”

“I sail on the tide aboard a mail packet. I just missed a supply ship, so the packet will have to do, though it is smaller and makes several stops along the way. With any luck, though, I should be in Louisbourg within a week, then another week to Quebec. Either the citadel will have fallen by then or I will have the honor of joining in the final attack.”

“Are you sure your leg has mended well enough?”

“By the time I’m on the Saint Lawrence, I am certain my poor abused leg will be fit and ready for a scrap,” said the major with a ruffling laugh.

There were clinking sounds of glasses being refilled. At length Loring said, “How fares the lady Jacqueline?”

“She fares well indeed,” said Pownall.

Another lull, then Pownall’s voice again. “I know what you’ve all been thinking, and I forgive you. She is French, and she was in the Shirley household much of the time he was governor. But I assure you, gentlemen, Madame Contrecoeur is above reproach. I have made inquiries in London as to her background, and it is well known that her family long ago rejected the Catholic faith. They are staunch Calvinists and enemies of Louis. And they have suffered for it. Anyway, she is not part of my circle of confidants, and I share nothing with her during our moments alone. We are on friendly terms socially. That is the extent of it.”

“Our earlier defeats may have been simply a matter of British bungling,” said Loring. “For all their high-handed manners, these jackanapes in red coats can be complete idiots.”

Laughter relieved the tension that Harry sensed when Loring mentioned the baroness. But it could not chase away Harry’s jealousy, the thought that Pownall no doubt had unfettered access to the whole of Jacqueline’s tantalizing body, with its provocative smell of flowers. Alarmingly, Harry felt a new stirring in his breeches.

“We shouldn’t take such delight in deriding our cousins,” said Pownall. Then, solemn again. “If there is some highly placed agent still active on our shores, that person could give them just the advantage they need to hold out in Canada until the fighting season ends. We have them boxed in for now, but if they are still there when the snows come, it could change the entire proposition. Wolfe would have to leave to avoid having his ships frozen in. Giving His Gallic Majesty the opportunity to get resupply and troop ships through our blockade once the ice melts come spring.”