The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (5 page)

“Aye.” I nodded and tried to hide my smile. Wanting nothing more than to make the moment last I did something I was terribly uncomfortable to do, but knew it would make him reside with me. “What if, like Locke instructed, the government proved to be tyrannical, brutal, like declaring martial law?”

He took in a deep breath, tickling my ribs against his. “Like your colony now?”

I slowly nodded. “Because of the, as Parliament calls it the Coercive Acts—”

“Your colony calls it,
you
call it the Intolerable Acts.”

“Yes, yes I do. Because of the Intolerable Acts, which were declared because some men had themselves a massive Tea Party and dunked thousands of pounds worth of tea in the Boston Harbor, the Massachusetts General Courts are no more; we cannot have town meetings, except on Sabbath; our governor does not exist, but we have in his place a general who runs my colony, a military
general
; Boston Harbor is closed for commerce unless it suits that general governor; we have many, countless many men without a job because of this; and–and, we Massachusetts people are no longer chartered with Britain. Do you know what all of that means? We no longer have English liberty. Does that make us English anymore? Or are we orphans?”

Monsieur Beaumont blinked a few times and swallowed. I loved the way his Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed–to me it seemed exotically masculine. “You should be a politician. I was so moved by your speech. Gladly, I will adopt you.”

I smiled. “Did you not notice that I’m a woman and as such, apparently, have no place in politics, save for being a politician’s wife? Besides, I can only give these little speeches to groups of our numbers. If there were even three of us, I might find myself too shy to make any comments.”

Monsieur Beaumont shook his head. “Ah, I have faith in you. You will change that.”

I chuckled, not knowing if he was referring to a woman being a politician or my shyness in public.

“So then the question is, Miss Buccleuch, whether or not the Massachusetts’ people will further rebel against her mother country, hmm? To, ah, perhaps have the rebellion be something more—what’s the word?—destructive, eh?”

To have the burning question spoken out loud was enough to make me want to crawl into a silent pause. I shrugged against his body. “We are just speaking hypothetically, sir.”

He chuckled softly, letting the bouncing reverberations of his laughter enter my body, tuck itself deep into my heart.

“
Mais bien sûr.
You wouldn’t happen to have read Voltaire?”

“I love Voltaire and Descartes.”

He placed his hand over his heart and swayed. “I know that as a man I’m never to ask this from a woman, but—”

I held my breath, waiting for the question.

“You speak so knowledgeably and learned. How old are you?”

I snorted out a laugh–very unladylike. But in breathless anticipation, I had—oh, goodness–I had thought he was going to ask me something improper or indecent, and he merely asked for my age.

“Two and twenty. Now you. You have to tell me your
real
age.”

He squinted and pretended to do arithmetic tables in the air. “One hundred ninety-one years, at least.”

I chuckled once more and shook my head.  

“Are you laughing at an ancient, infirmed man? And doubting him?”

“Aye, that I am, old man.”

At that he pushed me over while I was giggling too hard to straighten. Even with the rain, dousing my on-fire skin, I couldn’t impel myself back up. In so many ways I couldn’t right myself.

“You have a twig in your shirt.” Monsieur Beaumont said, as he gingerly retracted the small dagger of green wood from the arm of my men’s white linen shirt.

Another week passed with the only pause in our conversations during the nights and early mornings. I was dreadfully behind in my farm work, but I didn’t care. I went as far as to ask Jonah to not worry about anything too. I’d told him it was spring and we should enjoy the fine weather for once. I also had mentioned something about the birds singing their praise for the glorious earth, and he’d stared at me as if I’d spoken Armenian. He asked if I felt well, but I’d had to meet with Monsieur Beaumont, so I gave him some ridiculous excuse and ran away.

As Monsieur Beaumont worked the tiny piece of wood out of my shirt, we sat very close to each other, as if it was still raining. But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The bright azure heavens only poured surplus sunbeams, making my skin feel at once luscious yet prickly like I had a slight fever. We sat with our backs against the walnut tree, sagging in our posture as if we were losing our strength. Perhaps we were.

The tiny branch was not getting undone, which made Monsieur Beaumont’s face purse in frustration. He seemed especially careful not to touch me.

While he worked on my shirt he asked, “Mathew has told me you play the pianoforte. Yes?”

His words were wrapped tighter in his French accent. I noticed how when he was excited or nervous, his accent was stronger. If I didn’t already know French, I would have been lost to much of what he was saying.

“Aye. I do play the pianoforte. It was a rather expensive gift from my father when I was but a child and my sister was only a toddler. My sister, now, has an angelic singing voice. And I try to accompany it.” I watched as his fingers smoothed the white linen where a small hole appeared after he’d removed the branch. With the tiny piece of wood still in his palm, he released my shirt on a heavy breath.

He smiled at the place where his fingers had worked on my shirt. “I can imagine your family all playing music together, laughing together. I like you—your family very much. I haven’t had much occasion to be in the company of such friendly and warm people in so long.”

He sounded forlorn, as if really it had been a thousand years. “How long?”

He sighed. “Ah, at least fifty years.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Are you ever going to stop jesting that you are some ancient relic?”

His eyes brightened when I laughed. “Relic? Hmm . . .” But he shook his head and returned to the earlier subject. “You said your sister sings, but do you not, Miss Buccleuch?”

“I sing horribly, Monsieur Beaumont. And you?”

He laughed. “I sing horribly as well, but also play the pianoforte. Perhaps horribly at that too. I was wondering . . .” He paused and perused where the twig had been in my shirt again. I noticed he still had the bark in the palm of his hand, and was fingering it. “. . . wondering if I might take your family to the opera in Boston. You know Mathew is going there for some convention of some kind, and I was merely escorting him, but I thought why not invite you and your family too? Do you like the opera?”

“Mathew isn’t going for some convention. Maybe he’s told you that, but really, he’s going so he can drink at all the taverns his distant relatives establish, so he can talk about the upcoming congress meeting in Concord in just a few days. Er, forgive me, the Committee of Safety meeting.”

“You know about the secret meeting?”

I laughed. “It’s no secret. I’m sure even General Gage knows of its whereabouts. What we New Englanders are most proud of, we cannot hold our tongues in check of.”

Monsieur Beaumont’s smile wavered. “Is there no confidence? Confidentiality?”

I shrugged. “I keep secrets for the people I love or anyone I suppose, if they just ask.”

“Does anyone keep
your
secrets safe?”

I didn’t respond.

I’d never had a secret–until now. He, Monsieur Beaumont, was my secret.

I was very skilled at ignoring my emotions, but I didn’t view that as clandestine. It was the only thing that could keep me waking so early in the morning to fasten the reins on Bess and plow and sow and work hard until my fingers would bleed. The only desire I had until I met Monsieur Beaumont was to provide for my sister and mother. To hell with blisters and bleeding and tiredness, if it gave to my family.

But now my emotions were acting like vehemently angry children, yelling at me all the time about how I longed to touch Monsieur Beaumont–his black whiskers around his mouth and jaw line. Would it prickle like sandpaper? Or was his day’s length beard soft? And, oh, the glossy black fan of his eyelashes, surrounding his dark, dark blue eyes . . . Could I just feather my fingers against those onyx lashes?

I fantasized about Monsieur Beaumont when I wasn’t with him, which anymore wasn’t very long. I ached to be closer to him when I was in his presence. My body hummed a constant hymn for him; my heart opened long locked doors for him; my head—oh, it was my undoing.

I hated myself for my traitorous feelings, but surely I could purge my affections. Although my father was Quaker, my mother came from Puritanical stock. The belief that one could cleanse oneself from desires, from wanting, from the body’s own needs was simplistic, but lovely. I could do that. I had to. This infatuation—yes, I knew I was utterly smitten with the man; the proof was extraordinary!–was silly and frivolous, and I was certain in time I could stop my heart’s disloyal pining.

It didn’t help though when Monsieur Beaumont took my hand in his, like he was that very minute. Ach, my idiotic heart.

He offered, “I will be your confidant, if you’d like.”

“I’d like that . . . very much. I could be yours, if you’d like. Your confidante, I mean.”

“
Oui
?”

I nodded.

He smiled then let it fade as he retracted his hand from mine. The phantom of his hand still around mine played with my mind and body in a cruel way and was enough for me to collapse.

“You first, tell me a secret of yours.” He mischievously arched a black brow while he gave me a tiny smile.

Oh dear, that had been a half-cocked idea of mine. I only had one secret, except–

“Hannah–Hannah’s been courting a redcoat,” I confessed. “I know she’s already quite enamored with this young officer, but, now this is the secret, there’s something off, regarding their courting. I’ve never told my mother or Mathew, especially not Hannah. I believe Hannah’s lieutenant is . . . not quite honest with her. You see, Hannah’s lieutenant’s never called on my sister, never stepped foot on our farm. I think it rather disrespectful of him. Hannah has told me that he has to do drills almost every day, but surely he can come during Sabbath to meet Hannah’s family, don’t you think?”

“You have never met this man of Hannah’s?”

I shook my head and looked down to the brown soil carpeted with pine needles and brown lacey leaves. “I’m frightened he might be of the wrong ilk for my sister. What if he’s using her for some selfish game? I have no grounds to merit my fears, but I have them all the same.”

Monsieur Beaumont took my hand in his again, this time holding it tighter than before. “What is the name of this officer?”

“Lieutenant Mark Kimball.”

“I will find him and find out just what kind of man he is. I will discover all the details you seek.”

I blinked a few times, letting what he had just divulged sink in.

“You are a spy?” Although it was a question, I made it sound more like a statement.

Monsieur Beaumont nodded and smiled brightly. “You are so clever. You have discovered one of my secrets. Does that mean I need to tell you another, to balance our confidence in each other?”

“How can you make so light of such a thing? You’re a spy!”

“I am not making light of this, as you say. Mathew does not even know what I am. If you told one person what I am, then I would hang in the gallows faster than you could say—”

“I would never tell a soul. Never.”

At that moment I gripped onto his other hand furiously, seeking for him to know undoubtedly he could trust me. The sensation of his callused hands against mine was enough to make me stop breathing.

His voice was very low. “I thank you for that. I would hate for my neck to be stretched to an ungodly length. ”

“How can you jest so much?”

“If I do not, I fear, I would be weeping, which then might lead you to question my masculinity.”

“Men can cry. In fact, I find that I quite admire a man who can cry.”

He pretended to boohoo, which got him a smack on his shoulder. He caught my hand that had jabbed at him, while he grinned at me—both my hands in his again. His smile slowly diminished, and he seemed to hold his breath.

As much as I loved his touch, I was deeply curious. “How do you do what you do? How do you spy? Are you more a spy for your country or my colony?”

He shrugged and smiled. “Most often I have informants who love divulging their state’s secrets to me. I give the intelligence to my government. I usually
break
people’s confidentiality.” He stared out into the space through the forest trees. His face turned distant, cold. He morphed into a statue of himself, no longer the warm man I now knew so well. “Sometimes, I am a fly on the wall. I find ways of entering important meetings—no one sees me, and I extract all that I hear.