Mistress Firebrand (5 page)

She was writing, as usual, her pen scratching briskly across the paper. Jenny struggled to shake off sleep as Frances signed, folded, and sealed a letter and handed it off to Margaret with a coin. “Take this to Black Sam Fraunces’ tavern and put it into Davey’s hands, and no other’s.”

That struck Jenny as odd. Fanny didn’t write letters. She was always working on poems or a novel or her memoirs—her diligence inspired Jenny—but she carried on no regular correspondence. Jenny waited until the maid had gone and asked, “Who did you write to?”

“A friend in Boston.”

“I didn’t know you had any friends in Boston.”

“I don’t,” Frances admitted. “She’s only visiting.”

It would have been rude to ask what she had written about, ruder still to say:
But you never write to anyone
. Fanny had once told her, “Every woman has her secrets. The richness of her life can be accurately measured by how dangerous those secrets are.” Aunt Frances’ secrets had to be kept in a locked box.

Jenny had never kept secrets. Not about anything important, anyway. Her invitation to Burgoyne had been the first. She had hidden that from Bobby, and it had gotten her into an argument with him, rewarded her with a sleepless night and an aggravating crick in the neck.

She did not think she wanted a particularly rich life in that sense.

“I needed to talk to you last night,” said Jenny.

“Yes, I gathered,” said Frances Leighton. “For an actress, you’re awfully transparent offstage.”

“I’m not much of an actress,” Jenny said. There was no way she would have earned a place in the company fresh from New Brunswick if she had not been Frances Leighton’s niece. Her skills had improved some since then, but she was not the veteran her aunt was, and she had not been raised up in the theater like Bobby Hallam.

“Comedy is not your strong suit, though you write it well enough, and might yet develop such skills. But you have real promise at tragic roles, or so I was reliably informed by several gentlemen last night.”

“So you don’t remember what happened, do you?”

“It was not my best exit—I remember that much.”

“Your episodes are getting worse,” said Jenny. They were growing more frequent, and longer.

Aunt Frances shrugged. “Sic transit gloria mundi,”
she said. “If my memory fails entirely, I will have my memoirs.” She indicated the manuscript before her. “And you can read the scandalous bits back to me and I can enjoy them all over again.”

“I do not think you would make light of these spells if they were not serious,” said Jenny.

Aunt Fanny sighed. “Perception is a blessing and curse. Like talent. Your life might be simpler if you didn’t have either, or if you had never discovered them. Contentment is difficult to come by for the perceptive and the talented.”

She was so good at turning the conversation away from herself that Jenny gave up again. “I was hardly content in New Brunswick,” she said.

“But until New York you did not know of John Street and until John Street you did not know of Drury Lane. If you think you can go back, if you think you can be happy doing
anything
else, then you should give up the stage and go home, because the theater is a hard life and it never gets any easier, no matter how high you rise.”

“Do you think Burgoyne will accept Bobby’s invitation to attend on Wednesday?”

“I think it unlikely that Devere will allow him to set foot onshore. And if you accept
his
invitation to dine on the
Boyne
, while you may secure his patronage, it will not be without a cost. You must be honest with yourself about what Burgoyne will expect of you.”

“I understand what Burgoyne will expect.” She was not totally unsophisticated. And she did not think herself better than all the actresses who had been forced to tread this path before her.

“No, you don’t. Not really. You only think you do,”
said her aunt. “That is because you have not yet met a man to tempt you. You will, eventually, and you will regret Burgoyne, but that is one of the privileges so often denied our sex: the right to make—and erase—our own mistakes.”

“Does that mean you will help me?”

“If I can’t dissuade you, then yes.”

“If Bobby finds out, it’s back to New Brunswick for me.”

“New Brunswick should be the least of your fears. To reach Burgoyne you must go through Severin Devere.”

The intriguing dark-eyed man who had introduced himself as Burgoyne’s emissary last night. Who had not at first impressed her as handsome, but whose powerful appeal had then struck her with force. Who she had wished, truth be told,
had
been Burgoyne.

“Who is he?”

“The Honorable Severin Devere is—I understand—the half-breed son of a belted earl, the natural child of a frontier encounter with an Indian. His elder
brother
is a member of Parliament.

“As for Severin Devere—he is, at the moment, attached to Lord Germain’s government in some manner. On occasions he holds rank in the army—as a colonel, I am told—although he is rarely seen in uniform. He is a spy, certainly, but he is more than that. As far as I’ve heard he has no fixed political beliefs. He serves whoever holds the reins of power. Devere acts sometimes as confidential secretary to great men, sometimes as negotiator for the government.”

True to her craft, Aunt Frances paused for effect. “I am told Devere’s methods can be quite . . .
direct
. On
occasion, he kills. Whatever else he has been tasked with, protecting Burgoyne from peril and disgrace will be his first care, and he is a
very
dangerous man.”

Jenny felt the color drain from her face. She’d enjoyed bantering with Severin Devere, but she’d mistaken a wolf for a hound. “I’ll take care not to cross him, then,” she said.

“You must also deceive Bobby, and that will be difficult. He’s a fellow actor. If you counterfeit illness, he
will
know.”

“Then it is impossible,” said Jenny.

“Not impossible,” said Aunt Frances, “but difficult. And entirely dependent on how much you are willing to risk.”

Severin was able to avoid Burgoyne and any decision about Jennifer Leighton for much of Tuesday. He spent the morning applying leverage aboard the
Asia
, where he met with Captain Vandeput, a capable officer of Huguenot descent who was the acknowledged but illegitimate son of a baronet. Vandeput had no legal issue himself, but was extraordinarily fond of his wife’s niece, one Miss Sarah Wells, who was being courted by a spendthrift lieutenant who had thus far managed to conceal—but not from Severin’s excellent sources—that he was three thousand pounds in debt.

Information, of course, was currency, and Severin spent that particular coin to buy thirty casks of salted beef and twelve barrels of portable soup to replace the suspect victuals from the
Boyne
.

Because Severin understood how such matters worked, he’d already had the tainted casks of beef from
the
Boyne
split and thrown overboard—as soon as they’d dropped anchor, in fact. Had he not, the provisions would have ended up traded or sold in some shady transaction. The navy was rife with such underhanded business—and ordinarily Severin would not have interfered, but he had examined the sailors who had fallen ill from the beef and he was almost certain they had been poisoned. Only the cook’s scanty hand with the meat had saved the crew—all but two unlucky souls whose bodies had already been committed to the sea.

Severin had watched as the
Boyne
’s sailors tipped their dead fellows, sewn up in sailcloth, over the side, but he would never grow used to burial at sea. Perhaps it was the Mohawk in him—used to burial in the earth—or the landsman at any rate. Discomfort or no, he watched.

Burgoyne had not stirred from his cabin.

The deaths proved that the danger to the
Boyne
and her illustrious passenger was real and, as Severin knew from experience, impossible to entirely eliminate. Unfortunately, the threat of assassination had only roused Burgoyne’s worst impulses toward bravado and bombast, and as Severin returned to the
Boyne
he discovered the general preparing to go ashore in a boat.

He could not blame Hartwell, who had not wanted this duty and who had already borne more than his share of slighting remarks from the playwright general who expected to be entertained in style when he traveled and did not care for the captain’s dour frugality.

“Where is it you planned to go?” Devere asked his charge.

“To stretch my legs in Vauxhall Gardens,” said Burgoyne irritably.

“The deck is sufficiently long for that,” replied Severin coolly. “And Vauxhall is closed for the season.”

“The Holy Ground, then,” said Burgoyne, meaning the neighborhood between St. Peter’s and the college where
companionship
could be purchased. “We will be at sea a month, Devere. You come and go freely. There is no reason that I should not do the same.”

“There is
every
reason that you should not. The Liberty Boys make daylight raids on the city and kidnap loyalists from their own homes.” And lovely young actresses with too much to lose might admit you to their parlors and their beds.

“And yet you walk the city streets with impunity.”

“I am not a major general,” answered Devere.

“And of course, you were born here,” added Burgoyne.

“So were the loyalists who are now at the bottom of a copper mine in Connecticut.”

“And did the Liberty Boys also spirit away my actress?” asked Burgoyne. “Or did she resist your effort to capture her?”

The word choice, Severin knew, was intentional.

“She was tired,” said Devere. “And her manager is very protective.” His choice of words was intentional as well. Severin knew that Jennifer Leighton was not Robert Hallam’s mistress, but he would not mind if John Burgoyne thought so, and was discouraged accordingly.

Burgoyne, though, was not discouraged. “One of the Douglasses or the Hallams, no doubt. They would not be good enough to tread the boards in Bath or Bristol, yet in America they are celebrated as serious thespians. Was she pretty?”

Original. Clever. Engaging.
That was not what Burgoyne asked. “Pretty enough,” admitted Severin.

“Then fetch her here.”

I am not your dog.
But he was. He had made himself so, cultivating a reputation for reliability, effectiveness, discretion,
calm
. Distinctly unsavage qualities. Such discipline had earned him a place beside great men, the place his father and brother would not make for him, but he was as much at the beck and call of such men as a faithful hound, and like a dog that has been pushed too far, he now wanted to bite. He stifled the impulse to snap at Burgoyne, because that would only play to the man’s expectations.

“She has our direction,” Severin said at last.

“She does indeed,” said Burgoyne, producing a folded missive from his coat.

The letter, if it could be called that, was written in a decent approximation of Jennifer Leighton’s round, clear hand, but it was not good enough to fool Severin. Even if the script had been a closer match, Devere would have recognized it for a forgery. The contents were what he had expected the day before, a very explicit invitation from a harlot. It promised Burgoyne the pleasures of the “royal box” for Wednesday evening. That, and a plethora of similar double entendre cribbed from the bawdy novels of Cleland. Even if Jennifer Leighton meant to barter herself to John Burgoyne, Severin did not think she would put matters so crudely.

Severin tucked the letter in his pocket, in case he encountered that forging hand again. “A ruse,” he said to Burgoyne.

“That is what you said about the first invitation, which turned out to be genuine.”

“It is not written in the same hand.”

Burgoyne shrugged. “Then perhaps it was dictated.”

The letter was not from the pretty playwright. Severin knew that. He would never convince Burgoyne of it, though, because the man wanted to believe in his appeal to the fair sex, and no doubt lovely young actresses did vie for his attention in London. He had not met Jennifer Leighton, so he did not know that she was something more than a pretty young actress. Long experience had taught Severin that the truth was irrelevant to most people. They believed the version of events that most closely matched their prejudices and preferences, and blithely ignored any inconvenient evidence to the contrary.

Severin then met with Hartwell and made it clear that Burgoyne was not to be allowed to leave the ship and that any letters he asked to have sent to shore should be held for Severin. Hartwell knew him well enough not to take his instructions lightly.

The following morning Severin visited the yards along the waterfront where spars, cordage, caulk, and sail were sold, and he began applying leverage to induce the merchants to deal with the
Boyne
.

In this he was not as successful as he would have liked. Even merchants he knew to be quietly loyal were wary. They did not want to be seen dealing with the navy, lest Isaac Sears and the Liberty Boys descend on their homes and spirit them off to Connecticut. Apparently, the Provincial Congress had condemned Sears’ November raid but had no problem holding the judge and the others who had been abducted at the bottom of their grim mine indefinitely.

That, at least, was the fear that the merchants confided to Severin over rum, over brandy, over Madeira wine, over sangaree, over steaming flip, each according to his taste and circumstances. New Yorkers, Devere discovered, tippled all day, and to do business with them was a test of a man’s constitution.

Severin drank as little at each stop as he could without giving offense and listened to what the merchants did
not
say, observing, while they talked, the disposition of their premises and goods.

Real riots, Severin knew, were impossible to predict. The right conditions could simmer for days, weeks, months, until the pot of anger simply boiled dry.

Or a single heated exchange between the butcher’s boy and a surly merchant could ignite a conflagration.

New York had been a cauldron over the fire for a decade. That was nothing new. Most of the inhabitants going about their daily business on Wednesday sensed no change in atmosphere, but Severin could read the signs. There were provocateurs at work. He knew because he had carried out such designs himself.

Everywhere he went he saw men taking silent precautions. Shop doors stood open, but awnings were rolled tight; goods were on display, but pulled safely back from windows; fire buckets hung in entryways, and water barrels were full to the brim. Someone expected a mob—whether because rumor whispered it on the wind or the word had been passed from friend to friend, Severin did not yet know.

He could feel it in his bones, like an approaching storm. The whole of New York vibrated with quiet fear.

It was not, in point of fact, his problem. His problem
was John Burgoyne, and the sabotaged
Boyne
and the recalcitrant merchants of New York. But trouble on the docks, a burnt warehouse or destroyed stores, could dash the
Boyne
’s fragile hope of sailing this week, so Severin continued to make his way along the docks, bartering for provisions and naval stores and keeping one ear to the ground.

When his business took him as far north as John Street, he found himself straying from the docks toward the theater. The Divine Fanny kept a well-regarded salon in her chambers over the greenroom. He could present himself and listen to the gossip of the loyalists, discover if they were aware of the trouble brewing on their streets.

And he could speak with Jennifer Leighton again, who would banter with him on equal terms. He had spent all day listening to differing assessments of the governor and the leading men of New York, some feeble and some astute, and he found he wanted to know what
she
thought of Tryon and DeLancey and the presence of the
Asia
in the harbor. He wanted to hear, filtered through the same wit that had written
The American Prodigal
, a canny opinion on the situation in New York to compare with his own.

More, he wanted to talk theater and comedy and argue the merits of the
Mostellaria
and save her from an evening with the Miles Gloriosus he was charged with protecting.

That was drink talking, too many glasses of beer and sangaree with the merchants of New York loosening his reason and tempting him to give in to his desires. And those desires made him no better than Burgoyne. Except that he had actually seen her play
and admired its wit, and been moved by her impromptu performance. And he did not despise Americans, as Burgoyne did, as a race of clods and peasants, or view the first citizens of her thriving cities as somehow
lesser
than their counterparts in London or Bath or Bristol. The English had a peculiar notion that success in America was easier, that to carve wealth out of a wilderness was without toil, and indeed that the colonial atmosphere bred indolence and ingratitude.

He knew, from experience, that it did not. His very first memories were of learning to hunt for his dinner. He did not think often of that time, those ten years in the wilderness, when he had been the favored son. Ashur Rice had taught both Devere boys to kill with the blade and the bow, how to line up a shot, gauge wind and distance with a rifle and wait for the right moment to fire. In England it had all seemed a remote dream, an Arcadian idyll long past recovering, but in America it seemed real once more, though still just out of reach.

Like Jennifer Leighton.

As with so many colonists, the girl very obviously felt the pinch of her status as a provincial, and admired all things English and “sophisticated.” It would be so easy to play on that, to manipulate her into his bed by preying on her insecurities. As he had been maneuvered, he fully realized, into his role as spy and provocateur to counter the stigma of his Indian blood. He had never been bitter about it before. Not until this trip to America. Not until Boston.

He was not even certain it would be so very wrong to use his hard-earned status as an Englishman to attract her, because Jennifer Leighton’s American character was
a decided part of her appeal for Severin—but he was not in New York to indulge himself.

And the girl was not for him. He fixed things for powerful men. Reordered some bothersome aspect of the world to their requirements or advantage. A part of him wanted to fix things for Jennifer Leighton, to warn her that Burgoyne was a brilliant soldier and a talented playwright, and a selfish ass with no intention of advancing her career in the theater—except, perhaps, at a price that she should not have to pay—but his duty was to get the man home in one piece, not to safeguard the virtue of a woman who might be willing to part with it cheaply anyway.

He bypassed John Street and the charms of Jennifer Leighton in favor of duty, following the telltale signs of conspiracy to Beekman’s Slip, where Jasper Drake’s tavern stood opposite the quay.

Drake’s was not a grand public house like Mr. Fraunces’ or the King’s Arms or Smith’s in Philadelphia, all handsome brick structures with lofty ceilings and large windows. This was a workingman’s tavern, an old squat clapboard dwelling with a saltbox roof that sloped so low the shingles nearly kissed the ground at the back and the whole thing was more lean-to than gable. And it was a notorious gathering place for Liberty Boys and the dregs of the New York docks.

In his battered leather coat and old buckskin breeches Severin blended in with the sailors and stevedores and laborers who frequented the place. It was easy to do because the smoky taproom with its yawning hearth was packed and the patrons were full of the particular sort of good cheer engendered by free pints of steaming flip.

There was no obvious occasion for this merrymaking, no identifiable source of this unlooked-for generosity. It was an absence, Severin reflected, as a pretty barmaid pressed a foaming pot into his hands with a smile that told him there was more than spiked beer on offer, which told its own story.

That, along with the two mechanics slumming in homespun and passing through the crowd like proud parents at a wedding, with a warm word for every man there.