She cared nothing for his profits. “There are laws for a reason.”
He shrugged. “When a law is unjust it becomes a man’s duty to stand and oppose it.”
“Then stand and oppose it alone,” she shot back, “but give thought to the people you force to stand with you.”
His frown told her he wasn’t following, so she collected her temper before she said, “Father sent Benjamin down to meet Daniel. Do you know why? Benjamin wanted to go, and he asked me to help persuade Father, so that’s what I did.”
“Lyddie.”
“So now that’s on my account, too,” she told him, “what happens to Benjamin.”
“Nothing will happen to Benjamin.”
“How do you know? Henry said the admiral means to stop the Monte Christi trade, which means there will be men-of-war patrolling there. How do you know that Benjamin won’t suffer for it? Had he gone to Kingston he’d be fine, but if he’s found at Monte Christi, William, he could well be pressed into the navy, and what then?” She knew he’d heard the stories told by New York men who had been taken up and forced to work on ships of war, and none of them were pleasant.
William only asked her, “Henry knows this?”
“What, that you and Daniel have been trading with the French? Of course not. All he did was tell me how the Monte Christi trade works, and the rest I reasoned for myself.”
“And Father?”
“No, of course he doesn’t know,” she said, impatient. “It would kill him. Nor does Joseph know that he is working to repair a ship that will be carrying provisions to the men who stole his life.” She straightened in her chair and faced him, firm. “And he will never know this, because you are going to stop it.”
“Lyddie.”
“I am not a fool,” she said. “I don’t pretend to think our family matters to you half as much as do your profits.”
“Lydia.”
“But,” she told him, “you must give your promise that the Bellewether will never sail to Monte Christi harbour. You must promise, William. Joseph needs this. You know how he needs to do this work. But if you sail that ship to Monte Christi, then you might as well destroy him and be done with it.”
He met her gaze again and this time held it. “Fine.”
“I have your word?”
“You have my promise.”
“I intend to hold you to it. And we’ll have to hope that Joseph does not learn of you and Daniel by some other means.” A sick thought struck her, and she asked, “Does Silas know?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I shared a bottle of Madeira last night with him for that very purpose, to discover what he knew. Our cousin does not hold his drink well,” he said. “It deprives him of caution and inflates his arrogance, and you can then learn whatever you like before he even realizes he’s being questioned.”
She noted that William was speaking now in a confiding way he’d never used with her, and that emboldened her to ask, “And why were you questioning him to begin with? Why last night?”
He paused. Perhaps because he felt some guilt for lying to her earlier, or for exposing all of them to dangers they did not deserve, his next words had the simple ring of truth. “There’s an informer in our city, named George Spencer, who would see us all arrested and claim his reward.”
She remembered Henry telling her that advertisements had been posted lately in the papers for informers to come forward to report on any merchants who were trading with the enemy.
“I’m not alone in what I’m doing, Lyddie. Even the governor—well, let us say if George Spencer comes forward without any penalty, it will affect half the men of New York. So last night we all met at the coffee house. That’s where I was over supper.”
“And why you told Deborah to make certain Silas stayed here.”
“He would have followed me otherwise. You know what Silas is like.”
“Yes.” Of course, she thought, William would never have thought what effect it might have upon her, upon Deborah, to have to bear Silas’s company for all that time.
William carried on, “Silas has been a great nuisance since taking up lodgings in Sloat Alley, and it occurred to me he, like George Spencer, might have been too close to our warehouses, so when the meeting was over a few of us thought it was best to find out. That’s when I came back round here to fetch him.” He shrugged as though that were the whole of it. “And he knew nothing.”
“For now.”
“True, but after today, any would-be informers will think twice before coming forward.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, “we mean to make such a spectacle of Mr. Spencer that none will forget it. Don’t look like that. He’ll not be harmed much, just shaken.”
“For telling the truth.”
“There are times when the truth would be best left untold.” William’s eyes warmed until they became once again the same eyes of the brother she’d long known and loved. “You are young.”
She did not feel young. She stood. Smoothed her skirts. “It must be time for breakfast.”
“Most likely.” He seemed to be faintly aware something vital had shifted between them, and much like a plasterer seeking to smooth over a tiny crack, sought to pay her a compliment. “You’ve changed the way that you’re wearing your hair, I see. It’s quite attractive.”
He was the first of her family to notice, although she’d been wearing it this way for nearly two weeks. Since the day Mr. de Sabran had complimented her on it, and smiled.
“Thank you,” she said. She paused. “Where is this house where the injured French soldier is billeted?”
“Only a few streets up, near Coentjes Market.” He twisted around in his chair to glance back at the clock on the mantel. “I nearly forgot about that. I’m supposed to be taking your officer there at ten thirty.”
“I’ll take him.”
He offered no argument. No doubt, she thought, he was glad to be free of the burden, so he could attend to his own affairs.
And though their chairs hadn’t moved since they’d started their talk, at that moment he somehow seemed farther away.
Jean-Philippe
He should have been watching the harbour. He should have been noticing how many ships were there, and of what nations, with how many guns. He should at the very least have been applying himself to a study of this single street, but he wasn’t. Instead he was studying her.
She’d been quiet since breakfast. She was a quiet woman by her nature but he knew that this was something more.
He’d thought at first it was her cousin who’d upset her. He had marked the man’s name when her brother made the introductions: “Mr. Silas Wilde, my cousin,” who could only be the Silas Wilde he’d heard of from Pierre—the son of Monsieur Wilde’s unpleasant older brother. And if Pierre was convinced that Monsieur Wilde’s brother, when he died, would find himself in hell and not in heaven, Jean-Philippe could have assured him that the son would join him there. In all his life he’d only met two men with eyes like that, and he would not have wished to turn his back on either of them.
Understanding William Wilde had taken him more time, because the man refused to take a constant shape. Instead, much like the quicksilver that backed a mirror, he reflected anyone who faced him. It was only when you stood off to the side and watched him speak to others that you saw the subtle shifting, even with his sister. With his wife. Perhaps he’d never had a single form, or had forgotten it as he’d matured, and acting from self-interest he had altogether lost the art of keeping to one character. He was not heartless—his affection for the women was not feigned, but love from such a man would always have its limits at the boundary of his own needs and convenience.
That was why the women had been left all but alone last night with Silas Wilde, when any man who truly loved them never would have left them unattended. Worse that he’d stayed out so late, long past the hour when Jean-Philippe in any oth
er circumstance would have excused himself and gone upstairs, having endured a day of travel with a man who clearly hated him, compounded with some hours of conversation which did not include him, and which even if it had been in his language would have left him at the limit of his tolerance for everyday society. But even he, who knew the women only slightly, could not in good conscience have abandoned them.
He could not have abandoned her. He’d seen her face, however closely she had tried to school it, and he saw what it was costing her to maintain her politeness. He had seen her struggle just as hard to do the same with him, when he had first arrived. From time to time her cousin Silas would say something that brought angry colour washing to her cheeks but she would skilfully suppress it with a gesture or a movement and her voice, although it lowered once, was always calm. He found her quite remarkable.
He’d known the very moment that she realized—as he’d done some minutes earlier—that William’s wife was purposely attempting to detain their cousin at the house, and he’d watched them work together to accomplish it.
The song had been an unexpected benefit. He had not known she sang. She did not sing around the house as Violet did. Perhaps, he reasoned, she had not of late had cause for singing. But her voice was high and clear and very beautiful to listen to. He’d had to guard his features well to keep his admiration hidden. For her brother to make his return at that moment, depriving them all of a second song, had seemed a thoughtless intrusion.
That was, to be honest, the single descriptive word that suited William Wilde best: thoughtless. It seemed probable that something he had said or done had caused his sister’s change of mood this morning. At breakfast he’d been too solicitous and she’d been too reserved, and although he’d stood close beside her in the entry hall, presumably to give her last directions, she had scarcely looked at or acknowledged him while she had tied her bonnet.
Jean-Philippe, in that respect at least, could sympathize, since it appeared he also was invisible to her this morning. When they’d crossed the street he’d paused to offer her his arm as he had done the day before, but she had walked ahead without his aid, not in the manner of a snub but with the faint distracted frown of someone wrapped in troubling thoughts. The sky, as though to echo that, was dark with clouds. The day was cold.
He was not bothered by it, being well protected by his woolen uniform, but she was wearing what he guessed was her best gown—a pretty, ruffled thing, all over flowers in bright colours, but not warm, and only covered by a cloak that was unlined and had no hood.
Luckily they had not far to go. The house was only a few minutes’ walk from William Wilde’s, close by a bustling market. On the ground floor was a shop that offered, judging from its window, wines and brandies—no doubt carried into New York on the many merchant ships that now lay anchored in the harbour. But along the side, behind the shop, a door admitted them into the private residence.
The woman who came down the stairs to meet them was of middle age and dressed in widow’s black. She welcomed Lydia in English, but to Jean-Philippe she spoke in French so flawless it was evident that it was her first language. He recalled her name from Captain Wheelock’s letter, and returned her greeting with, “Good day, Madame de Joncourt.”
Wheelock had explained that the de Joncourt family had long had the favour of the governor, did work for him, and took in special lodgers. When your General von Dieskau was so gravely wounded, being taken prisoner four years ago, so Wheelock had continued, he was cared for by Madame de Joncourt, so I thought you would approve my sending her your sergeant also, that he might there convalesce in greater comfort than he would in gaol.
It was indeed a house of comfort.
Stepping in, he felt surrounded by its warmth and scents of bread and coffee, raising childhood memories that were heightened when, on entering their upstairs parlour, he found a gathering of girls in curls and petticoats and one lone boy, who might have been his sisters and himself when younger. And to add still further to the feeling he was on familiar ground, the man now rising from his chair to greet them was an officer of the regiment of Guyenne, gold buttons shining brightly on the red-cuffed sleeves of his white coat, and a fine expensive powdered wig tied back beneath his gold-trimmed hat.
“Louis de Preissac de Bonneau,” was how he introduced himself. He was a captain.
Jean-Philippe paid him the proper honours and returned his full name, “Jean-Philippe de Sabran de la Noye,” then stepped aside and added, “And may I present to you Mademoiselle Wilde.”
“Mademoiselle.” Bonneau bowed deeply, smiled with charm, and spoke to her in English while Madame de Joncourt turned to Jean-Philippe.
“We were just having coffee. May I bring you some?”
“I’d see my sergeant first.”
“Of course.” She broke into the captain’s conversation with, “Captain Bonneau, will you take the lieutenant up to see his man?”
Bonneau said, “Certainly,” and gallantly excused himself from Lydia. “Come, it’s this way.”
Jean-Philippe followed, glancing back just once to make sure Lydia was settled in the parlour with the others. Just the slightest glance, but it did not escape Bonneau.
“She will be fine.” His tone was sure. “Madame de Joncourt takes great care of everyone beneath her roof, particularly pretty girls. She guards her own as if they were the gold and she the dragon. And believe me, I’ve the scorch marks to bear witness to it.”
As they climbed the narrow staircase Jean-Philippe tried hard to call to mind the faces of the three de Joncourt girls who had been in the parlour. He could not. But they’d seemed young, and he remarked on that.
“The eldest is near twenty,” Bonneau told him. “Jeanne. A lovely girl, but fonder of a red coat than our white ones, I’m afraid. Her youngest sister, Phila, is but ten, and still a child. And Rachel, in between them, is sixteen. A girl so young, in my experience, is apt to think on love when you are minded to less lasting pleasures, so it’s neither nice nor kind to sport with them.” The captain’s glance was speculative. “How old is your mademoiselle?”
Jean-Philippe, to any other man, might have replied she was not his, but in the face of Bonneau’s easy charm he found himself responding with a shrug instead, defensively. “I’ve never asked.”
They’d reached the upper floor. Along the corridor, towards the end, a door stood open. Inside, in a bed heaped warm with quilts, the sergeant lay alone, his bandaged head against the pillow. He was sleeping.
Bonneau stayed within the doorway. “There’s a chair there you can pull across to sit beside him. I do that some days. He never sleeps for long. The pain,” he said, by way of explanation, “will not let him.”
Frowning, Jean-Philippe asked, “How long has he been like this?”
“Like this? I could not say. They only brought him here two weeks ago. Before that he was in the prison hospital, but Captain Wheelock—you have met him? He sent orders that your man should be moved here instead. He is a good man, Wheelock.”
“He would seem to be.”
“No, you must take my word. I’ve been here for a while, and of the English soldiers I have dealt with he has been the best of them.” Bonneau nodded towards the bed. “Your sergeant is a good man also. I don’t think I’ve yet heard him complain.”
“It’s not his nature to complain.” Taking the plain rush-seated chair that had been set beside the window, Jean-Philippe moved it with quiet care across so he could sit as Bonneau had suggested, at the bedside of the wounded man. “His name is Jacques Le Roy, but he is called La Réjouie.”
It was a long tradition in the army—common soldiers having second names that they were called by, often given to them for some trait of personality. His sergeant’s meant “the cheerful one,” because he always smiled.
“It suits him well,” Bonneau agreed. “Though with more time here he may grow as disagreeable as me.”
Beneath the light tone Jean-Philippe could hear an edge of tru
thfulness, and glancing up asked, “How long have you been here?”
“I was taken the July before this past one, up at Carillon. The English general gave me leave to go to Montreal to put my few affairs in order first, but naturally I had to come back down here to surrender when I’d finished, and I’ve been here ever since, waiting to be exchanged. If any good comes at all from our loss of Quebec it will be that there are enough officers taken on both sides to force a cartel,” he said. “But it’s a damnable paradox, having to wait for your enemy’s victory so you can get back in the fight.”
A man who felt his own frustration, then.
The sergeant stirred. His eyes were coming open.
“Well,” Bonneau said, “I will leave you two to talk. I’ll see you downstairs after.”
Jean-Philippe took little notice of the other’s leaving. His attention was already on his sergeant, who was struggling to raise himself as though he thought it disrespectful to be lying down when in the presence of an officer.
“No, rest,” said Jean-Philippe. “Lie still.”
“I can do little else, in honesty.” La Réjouie grinned feebly. “I am like a child.” His ribs were obviously hurting him. He shifted to relieve them before going on. “I told him you would come, you know. That other one, the captain here, I told him you would find out where I was and come to see me. ‘It may not be easy,’ that was what he told me, and I said to him, ‘You don’t know my lieutenant. Wait and see.’ And here you are.”
It was a touching thing to know that you had earned a good man’s trust. “I’m sorry that I took so long.”
“No matter. I can barely keep the days and weeks in order.” With a motion to his head, La Réjouie said, “Everything gets jumbled up together. I can’t even tell you what today is.”
“It’s the second of November.”
“Is it? Truly? Well, you see I should be grateful for this injury, because it makes the time of my captivity fly by.” He coughed, and tried to hide his wince.