She’d certainly never met anyone like this Mr. Fallon. How could Elizabeth have possibly given him up for Justin? Gabrielle headed thoughtfully back to the house.

  Jean-Baptiste studied the report with pursed lips, and consigned it to the fire with a muttered curse. Another meeting of that traitorous little cabal! Oh, it’d been disguised as a meeting of the Smoking Club at John Rutledge’s house, but Gadsden had been there, and Timothy, and others whose names would one day figure in a state trial. And among those names: Fallon. And Henri and Louis.

  Damn the boys. Damn them. They defied him. He thrust savagely at the burning logs with a fire iron. Why had they ever chosen to return on Fallon’s ship last year? One thing was plain, though. During the voyage, in some way, Fallon had managed to gain their confidence and trust, and twist their minds toward this damned rebellious cant.

  They were past the age when he could force them to obey, short of threatening to disown them. That he would not do, at least not now. They were Fourriers. If they could no longer be trusted to be a part of the grand dream, they could still be saved from themselves.

  Mauma Rosa passed the door with year-old Robert, gurgling with laughter, in her plump arms. Distracted, Jean-Baptiste motioned for her to enter. It was good to be a grandfather. She held the boy up, and he reached to pat his cheek. An inch away his hand froze. His face was suddenly wooden. The boy’s laughter died.

  “Do you be all right, sir?”

  “Hush.” It was impossible. He simply had Fallon too much on his mind. And yet it was there to see. “Take him away.”

  He slammed the door behind her and her crying charge. How long since the child was old enough that he should have seen? Six months? But was it really there? The blue eyes could have come from Elizabeth. His coloring was easily Fourrier. But now, on that infant face, were the emerging cheekbones and the damning hook nose of Fallon blood.

  God curse the name! He managed to calm himself. His heart pounded so hard that his chest and arm hurt. He sank panting into a chair and massaged away the pain. It must be kept from Justin. He’d go storming out to fight a duel, and no matter the outcome the Fourrier name would be stained forever. No, the boy would be raised as a Fourrier. If he must be watched, if he could not be allowed the highest seat, nevertheless, before Jean-Baptiste finished with him he would be a Fourrier.

  Still, the snit must be dealt with, and now. He strode out of the study with a face like a thundercloud. The first servant to see him tried to duck out of view, but he stopped her with a gesture.

  “Where is my son’s wife?”

  Relief shone on her face. “She be in the circular garden, sir. She—” but he was gone.

  One look at his face, and Elizabeth stepped back, hands rising toward her face. He grabbed her wrists, crushing them together. With a scream she went to her knees on the gravel path.

  “Tell me everything you know of Michael Fallon’s past,” he said. His eyes burned into hers.

  “Oh, God, don’t! It hurts!”

  “Look at me, girl. Look at me. You talked often with Fallon. He seduces” —he paused craftily—“my sons into treason. I will know what I must to destroy him. Tell me.”

  She began to sob with relief, to babble. “He was a soldier, a hussar. He lived near the River Shannon. He had a friend named Timothy Cavanaugh. He—”

  Jean-Baptiste smiled thinly. Excellent. And the pain in his chest was completely gone, now, though when he thought of this woman in rut with Michael Fallon—He tightened his grip. Most satisfying, the way her speech was punctuated by moans, and the way her fingers fluttered so helplessly. Most satisfying.

  The man who sidled into Jean-Baptiste’s study had common clothes, a common voice, a common face. There was a gleam of avarice in his eye as he appraised the rugs and furnishings, but it was gone in an instant. He stopped in front of the desk, hat in hand.

  “You sent for me, sir?”

  Jean-Baptiste fixed him with a silent, unblinking stare. Twice the fellow opened his mouth and closed it again. Fourrier watched the sweat pop out on his forehead. As he opened his mouth for the third time, Jean-Baptiste spoke. “You are a weasel,” he said flatly. “A ferret. A slinker in back alleys.”

  The man started to protest, thought better of it. Fourrier smiled. “I am told you can find out anything, about any man, given the time and the money.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said nervously. “I—”

  “Be silent! I have in my possession sworn affidavits. It seems there was a girl who claimed her child was yours. She was found in the river with her throat cut. A man in New York who owed you money was found with his skull split open and his strongbox rifled.”

  “It weren’t me, sir.” The man’s voice held a vicious desperation. “I never—”

  “I told you to be quiet. Now. If you betray me, if you fail me in the slightest, I will see that these affidavits are handed to the magistrate, along with your person.”

  The man twitched as if he was being prodded with hot irons. “God’s love, sir, I’ll do anything you want. Just, just don’t—”

  “At the moment I want quiet.” He waited, watching the man sweat, letting the time weigh on nerves grown thin. “So. In this folder is information about one Michael Shane Fallon. He was a soldier. He is ambitious. He has a certain native intelligence. Yet he came here as a bound man. He was running from something. I want to know what. If it will hang him—if you serve me well—one thousand pounds is yours.”

  “It’ll hang him, I swear to you, sir. I’ll find it to hang him.”

  Jean-Baptiste smiled, and the man shivered. “There are letters for you. One is to a man in England, where you will go first. He will dole out expense money to you, so long as it is properly accounted for. The others will do the same as you follow the trail. And you will follow it wherever it leads. But do not take too long. I might think you are running away from me. Now, I do not want to see you again until you have the information that will hang Michael Fallon.” The man made it all the way to the door before Fourrier’s voice reached out like venom. “And Toller, never think you can run so far I cannot reach out and snap you like a twig.”

  Toller closed the door tight. Then he began to run. God’s bones, but he needed a drink. A viper of a man, that Fourrier. A viper.

  On a cool October afternoon in 1772, Michael sat in Miss Pinckney’s garden and read poetry. Around him in a rainbow of dresses were the Misses Manigault, Thibodeau, Waring, Somers, and Fourrier. And, of course, Miss Pinckney. He read from the proper poems of Milton and Donne, and the not-so-proper of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Spenser. He was amused to see they liked the second better. When Christopher Gadsden appeared in the midst of “My Love Is Like to Ice,” they rose in a body against him.

  “You shall not have him,” Miss Waring said.

  “It’s ill of you, Mr. Gadsden, to break into a lady’s garden unannounced,” Miss Pinckney said.

  “Please don’t go with him, Mr. Fallon,” Gabrielle said.

  Gadsden looked around him in amazement. “Please, ladies, please. My need is of the utmost. It’s urgent that I speak to Mr. Fallon.”

  The other girls began to depart, but Gabrielle lingered briefly. “You’ll come back, won’t you, Mr. Fallon?”

  “If I can, child. Now go along with the others, or I’ll tell. your brothers who put the cat in their clothespress.”

  She laughed, stuck out her tongue, and hurried off after the rest.

  Gadsden, already twitching at his sleeve, pulled him down the carriage path. “Hurry,” he said.

  “What is it? Drayton? I know. So he goes to England, gains an appointment to the Council, and ever since his return raises holy hell about placement—about appointing idiot younger sons to posts in Charlestown. As if it isn’t exactly what he’s made of himself. But it’s not worth that time to trouble over it.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Drayton,” Gadsden burst out. “I don’t give a damn about placement. I want you to shut up and listen.” Michael stared. Gadsden sometimes got carried away on a point, but he never lost control completely. Now he grated out the words, “Governor Montagu’s sneaked out of town, down the coast to Beaufort.”

  “A trip for his health, I take it. What the hell is he doing?” A slave Michael recognized as one of Gadsden’s had knelt at his heels and was making a rough job of fastening spurs to Michael’s buckled shoes.

  “Montagu’s called the Assembly into session, in Beaufort, tomorrow. If there’s no quorum by the third call, he has legal grounds to prorogue. To end the session until it’s his pleasure to call new elections. And God help us, the Assembly’s scattered halfway to hell. He and the Council will be able to run the province like the King’s private preserve. And you can wager he’ll fend off a new election for months if not years.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Gadsden motioned another slave forward with a saddled horse. “Ride! Take the Santee. Find any Assemblymen you can. Tell them there’s no time. They’re to ride like hell for Beaufort.”

  Michael mounted. Instead of leaving, he sat shaking his head. It had been building in his mind for a long time, at every discussion of political philosophy with Henri and Louis, at every action of Parliament or the Royal Governor that struck at American freedoms. And now to have to scramble and scrabble just to keep their own government. “It seems you are right, Mr. Gadsden.”

  “Right about what?”

  “Independence, sir. Independence. We must take our country from the British, or they will surely take it from us.” And he put spurs to the horse and rode.

  17

  Jean-Baptiste stared levelly at his daughter, standing in front of his desk so coolly, and drummed with the fingers of one hand. What was to be done? First, insolent disobedience from Henri and Louis, now this—this thing concerning Gabrielle. This summer of 1774 would be crucial; he could not be bothered by his children. She shifted, and he frowned at her, but she only smiled as though returning one of his.

  How long had it been going on? And what was Fallon up to? Surely even Fallon wasn’t foolish enough to involve women in politics. Still, it would be better to be certain. And he didn’t want the man near her in any case.

  “Papa,” Gabrielle said, “it’s obvious you’re angry about something. But I don’t know what.”

  Her father sighed. “It has come to my attention that you and a number of your friends often have a Michael Fallon at your poetry readings. I wish it to stop.”

  “Papa, Mr. Fallon isn’t even in the city,” she said sweetly. “He’s been at sea for months.”

  “Are you being flip with me, child? I wish this thing to stop, and it will stop. He returns today. You will not see him again. This Michael Fallon is a dangerous radical, not at all the sort of man to consort with young ladies. In fact, I’m surprised the Manigaults, for one, allow him on their property.”

  “They find him most acceptable, Papa. His manners are perfect, and he is excellent company.”

  “That lies neither here nor there. His is not fit company. If necessary, you will simply stop visiting these daughters of foolish parents. If you must babble with another female, your sister Elizabeth is here.”

  Gabrielle stiffened. “Papa, I will not be separated from my friends.” She paused, then went on casually. “How would their parents take it if I were to be refused the company of their daughters?”

  He looked up sharply. Was the girl hinting at blackmail? No, of course not. Still, the word could spread. And he couldn’t afford losing those families’ good will at the moment. Too many delicate undertakings were beginning. The local citizens might yet be incited to mimic the Bostonians’ drowning of the tea; there was a public meeting to be manipulated … .

  “I have said nothing of forbidding you your friends. I said ‘if necessary.’ But in my case, you will not see him. Now go, child. I have work.”

  “Yes, Papa.” She dropped a curtsey, but he’d already picked up some papers and forgotten her.

  In the hall, her hands shaking, she was amazed she’d managed to maintain her composure. When he’d summoned her, she’d been certain he’d found out. But then, how could he? No one knew but her. And how long had it taken her herself to realize? But it was true. She was in love with Michael Fallon.

  In love. What a thing to happen to a girl who knew she was sensible and level-headed. It wasn’t as if he’d encouraged anything, drat him. He most assuredly didn’t have any such feelings for her, or any feelings at all. And that made it childish calfsickness. Not that it helped.

  “Has Papa Fourrier straightened you out, my dear?”

  With a start Gabrielle saw Elizabeth fussing with a bowl of July roses. A woman with that much bosom shouldn’t show so much of it, she thought idly. “My father merely wished to speak to me.”

  Elizabeth smiled maddeningly, turning the bowl for a last look. “There. My child, I’m your sister. Your brother’s wife. I know all about family discipline problems. And,” she finished in a strangely greedy tone, “I know about your taste for low companions.”

  Gabrielle’s face tightened. This, this woman had no right to talk to her that way, Justin’s wife or no. “I see you’re still as slim as ever, Elizabeth. Hasn’t Justin been able to put another baby into you yet? Or has he stopped trying, now that he has that little French actress?”

  Elizabeth whirled, white-faced and trembling. “How dare you!” She managed to control herself, and a malicious smile appeared. “I had a suggestion for Papa Fourrier. Lock you in your room and feed you on gruel, with a dose of the switch before every meal. I shall have to suggest it again.” Elizabeth seemed breathless as she finished, her eyes bright and moist.

  Gabrielle sighed. Unless she put a rein to her tongue—“Elizabeth, I’m sorry. But I don’t understand. What was between you and him is long gone and done.”

  “What was—Michael Fallon? Is it Michael Fallon you’re seeing?” Elizabeth’s voice was calm, but her hands crushed the lace of her overdress.

  “You didn’t know?”

  Elizabeth was churning. Justin had only said Gabrielle was seeing someone unsuitable. What could Michael possibly see in this child? Of course, that might be it. A girl on the blossoming side of twenty, with skin of childhood softness, childhood color in the cheeks. “He truly is dangerous for you to see,” she said suddenly. “You mustn’t see him again. You mustn’t.”

  The clock on the mantel striking the half-hour saved Gabrielle. “I must go, Elizabeth.”

  The other woman’s voice stopped her at the door.

  “He really isn’t suitable. Justin isn’t the only one with an actress in town. Michael Fallon has more than one.”

  In spite of herself Gabrielle couldn’t help one last retort before leaving. “Why, Elizabeth, men must be men.”

  Elizabeth unclenched her hands. Hell and damn. The girl might be serious about Michael. He’d run away when she needed him, but here he was sniffing around that simpering little wench. What could he possibly see in her? It wasn’t that she was jealous. She had no more use for Michael Fallon. None at all. Justin was all she needed, now that he’d learned to control his brutality. Her breasts felt tight with the thought of what was going to happen that night. She’d gotten the idea watching the mares being bred, but it shouldn’t be too hard to convince Justin he’d thought it up. And then—What did Michael see in that girl?

  In the hall the butler had stopped winding the tall clock. “Are you all right, Miss Gabrielle? Should I call Martha?”

  Gabrielle took her hands from her face and opened her eyes. “No, that’s all right, Asa. Is my carriage ready?”

  “Yes, miss. And Martha too.”

  The carriage waited at the stairs, the four horses shifting impatiently, the big red wheels grating on the sand of the drive. Martha, her fat maid, herded her into her seat like an anxious mother hen, deploying her parasol, muttering about sunstroke and freckles.

  Gabrielle could take the fussing no longer.

  “Martha, sit down. Reuben, drive on. The Bay, please.”

  Thoughts crowded in on Gabrielle. Justin wasn’t the only one with—No, she wouldn’t think about it. But how could she not? Everyone knew about Michael Fallon’s lightskirts. All the gentlemen had stories about him. There was the actress who played boys’ roles in tights and danced for Michael Fallon without them. And that awful Mrs. Selfridge was said to have lost her clothes to him on the turn of a card, paid without leaving the table, and wagered herself on the next deal. The young man who’d told her had refused to say the rest, but she could imagine. The Fallon luck was as much talked of as the Fallon women. Oh, damn it, he was a man who’d break her heart without ever knowing it!

  Michael watched as the last of the crates swayed over Hussar’s side and was lowered onto a handbarrow. It was good to be back in Charlestown, even in the July heat.

  “Blind me,” the wharfman swore as he took the weight with his back and shoulders, and the barrow barely moved. “What’s in these here things? Iron?”

  “Has to come from somewhere,” Michael said. “Careful of those crates, now. Do you break one open, you’ll carry every lump of it in your pockets.” The wharfman swore again and managed to move the barrow off. Michael turned, and found Gabrielle smiling at him, parasol over her shoulder.

  “Greetings from my brothers, Mr. Fallon, and from the reading circle.”

  “And none from you, little Brielle?” he laughed. He lifted her in a hug, and was startled at her softness. Damn, she wasn’t a child any longer. He’d have to stop doing that, though he felt strangely reluctant. Hastily he set her back on her feet. God, she was his friends’ sister. “The wharf is no place for a lady.” From a barrelhead he took his hat and a package, and put her hand on his arm. “I’ll take you to your carriage.”

  Gabrielle sighed. He embraced her only because she was a child. Idly at first, then with curiosity, she peeked around him at the package under his arm. “What’s in the package?” she asked at last. “Is it a gift? For whom?”