Laurens and Middleton surged to their feet.

  “Easy, Michael.”

  “Come, Fallon.”

  White-faced, Drayton rose. “You interfere too often in things that don’t concern you. Look to yourself, Fallon, before the Council must chastise you.”

  “If the Council wants me, if you want me, Drayton, then let it be now.” He pulled open his coat and let his hands rest on the pistol butts.

  The Council exploded. Drayton tried to force his way to Michael, but Rawlins Lowndes seized his arms. Laurens and Middleton hustled Michael out of the room.

  “Go back, Arthur,” Laurens said. “Soothe him. We can’t afford a duel now. And you, Michael. Calm down. What do you mean drawing weapons on the Council?”

  “I didn’t draw them,” Michael muttered. “Damn it, sir, the man believes in liberty only for himself.”

  “He’s one of the most ardent for our cause in the colonies. There aren’t so many we can afford to dispense with one. And I’m not sure we could dispense with Drayton. He’s gathered great power with that ardency.” Laurens’s eyes suddenly twinkled. “You’re an ardent man yourself, Michael. Don’t waste your passions; spend them on the British.”

  Michael drew a deep breath. “With no dissent allowed, we’re worse than the British.”

  Their footsteps echoed in the empty hall, and the last sounds from the Council chamber faded as they emerged onto the broad front steps. The street was empty.

  “There are more important matters than Drayton, Michael. Events move faster than I believe even Gadsden envisioned. Lexington, Concord. And every ship brings word of another skirmish. It’s open war, now. We must think how to fight it.”

  “I intend fitting out Hussar as a privateer.”

  “I know we’re going to issue letters of marque, but there are some who will see it as making a profit from the war.”

  Michael snorted. “You, Mr. Carver, and your friends won a battle for us once. You made the English merchants scream, and Parliament heard that if they never heard another thing from us. Think how they’ll scream when American privateers start snapping up their ships, when they find insurance and freight cost more than the cargo. And of course, the English armies, in Boston or wherever else they send them, must be supplied by sea. It’s long, lonely thousands of miles from Britain, and we’ll be waiting like wolves behind every swell.”

  “An interesting image. Well, I’d better go see if Arthur’s gotten Drayton quieted enough for us to finish. God be with you, Michael.”

  “And you, sir.”

  Michael kept a wary eye as he found his way to the street. Something moved in the shadows beside the steps. A foot scraped on the pavement. Six inches of his sword whispered from the scabbard.

  “Hold on, lad. It’s me, Christopher.” Byrne moved slowly into the street.

  “Lord, man, what are you doing here, and hiding?”

  Byrne cleared his throat. “I was down below, you see, telling the lads the news of Boston, when this wild-eyed fellow burst in, yelling that Michael Fallon’s gone mad and is killing the Council of Safety. They all of them go pouring out of the room, with me on their heels thinking to give you a hand with it. Only by the time I got there everybody was bowing and backing out, saying it was but a false alarm. So. Did you shoot them? Or did they shoot you?”

  “Neither. Come stay to my house tonight. It’s the same one I’ve rented before. What did happen in Boston? Another skirmish?”

  They dodged across the street in front of a lumbering cart. A light, misting rain began to fall; they walked a bit faster.

  “A big battle, Michael.” Byrne’s voice had an edge. “They say the British had over a thousand casualties.”

  “A thousand—” He stopped in the street, then started again, slowly. That damn well is a battle. What happened?”

  “Well, you have to remember I was in Salem, so I got it all second hand, or even third. And on top of that, the Bible-thumpers weren’t eager to talk about it. Seems they bungled it awful bad, for all the redcoats they killed.”

  “What happened?”

  “In the middle of the night, the sixteenth of last month, a Friday it was, they sent themselves a party out to fortify a place above their Charlestown. Breed’s Hill, or Bunker Hill. I heard both.”

  Michael nodded. “Go on.”

  “The next morning the redcoats crossed over, I don’t know how many, and attacked. They were beat back two, three times before they finally broke in with the bayonet. The New Englanders had run out of powder.”

  “Why’d they invite the action if they didn’t have the powder to fight it?”

  “That’s the part they’re ashamed about. I had to dig it out piece by piece, and I don’t know near the whole of it. It seems the men who fought the battle may have been no more than the working party. Most, or maybe all, of those who were supposed to fight refused to march, because it was daylight, and they’d be under fire from British ships before they reached the redoubts. For sure ten times the number who fought sat along the road and never stirred till the rout reached them. Then they ran like they’d bayonets up their backsides. I’m thinking those Massachusetts lads would just as soon forget it ever happened.”

  The light rain had grown heavier; sheet lightning flashed in the sky. They began to trot.

  “Militia, Christopher. Militia can throw away a battle every time, even if it’s handed to them.” They fairly pounded up the steps of Michael’s house. One bolt lit a covered carriage in the drive.

  At a resounding crack of thunder, a tiny shriek issued from the shadow at the back of the veranda. Gabrielle ran out, smiling weakly. “I, I’m so sorry. Thunder doesn’t usually frighten me, but that one caught me by surprise.”

  “I’d better be leaving you,” Christopher murmured.

  “No. Stay,” Michael said quickly. He took her arm and led her a few paces down the porch. With an effort he managed to keep his voice low. “Brielle, what in God’s name are you doing here? An unmarried man’s house, in the middle of the night. And you don’t even have Martha with you. Are you trying to ruin yourself?”

  “That’s why I sat outside instead of going in. I do hope Jem is all right. He’s my driver. I t-told him to sit inside the carriage if it rained.”

  “Why?”

  “One of the slaves t-told Martha you were in trouble with the Council of Safety, and then another said a man had been t-tarred and feathered, and I thought it was you, but I didn’t know, or how to help you, so I came here, and—” She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. “When you walked in I felt so happy.”

  Michael smiled at her tenderly. Silly child. But so sweet. “Come along, Brielle. I’ll put you in your carriage, and let you explain to your father where you’ve been.”

  “Oh, Papa and Justin are almost never in the city anymore. It’s just Henri and Louis. Mi—Mr. Fallon—” She paused to collect her wits. How could just his hand on her arm have such an effect? “Mr. Fallon, I heard something else tonight. Henri and Louis said a huge battle has been fought in Boston.”

  “Don’t worry, child. It can’t hurt you here.”

  She rounded on him intently. “Don’t cosset me. I’m not a child. I know what it means. Those other things, Lexington and the rest, they weren’t the same. They were little things. I know men died. But we could go back; it could all be as it was before. But not now, not after this. It’s all changed forever, and I’m terrified.” Suddenly she was shivering and couldn’t stop. His arms went round her, and for a minute he thought he was going to kiss her.

  Lightning flared again. Even in the harsh light her face was alive and vibrant. “Jem,” Michael called, “come for your mistress.” He watched her into the carriage, his thoughts troubled. When he turned Christopher was looking at him strangely. “And what is it you’re seeing?”

  “Nothing,” Byrne said quickly. “Not a thing. Tell me, now. Would you be having some good drinking whiskey about the place?”

  In the hall at Les Chenes, Justin flipped open the snuffbox expertly and put a pinch up each nostril. A tremendous sneeze followed quickly, but he stifled it in a silk handkerchief. It left him feeling clear-headed. God knew, he needed it to face his father lately. The tirade flowed from the old man at the slightest excuse. “I,” he’d said, “worked for months to ensure that the South Carolina delegation to this soi disant Continental Congress would not only have no radicals, but would have Miles Brewton, a complete King’s man. The chances of unity in Philadelphia with one delegation so comprised would have been small. But no sooner does this Fallon return to the city than he ruins it all. He appears everywhere, meddling, disrupting, interfering. Damn him! Damn him!”

  He couldn’t think of listening to it again without grinding his teeth. Well, he had something to calm the old man. He straightened his lace in the mirror and entered the study.

  Jean-Baptiste looked up from his desk. For once his gimlet eye carried no warning of a tirade to come. “Sit, Justin. You wish some wine?”

  “Not just yet, no. I’ve some information.” He paused for the old man to ask what, but Jean-Baptiste merely waited. He grimaced and went on. “Last night Governor Lord William Campbell departed.” Still there was no reaction. “He sneaked down the back stairs of his house, rowed through the marsh, and is hiding on HMS Tamar in the harbor.”

  “You forgot that he took the seal of the colony with him,” Jean-Baptiste said, and smiled inwardly at his son’s chagrin. “At ten o’clock last Wednesday night a turncoat named Chaney introduced one Captain Adam McDonald of the rebels’ First Regiment of Foot to Lord William as a loyal sergeant of Moses Kirkland’s irregulars. He obtained the information that troops will be sent against South Carolina before next fall. Between Lord William’s knowledge of this and the capture of Fort Johnson by the rebels, they were at the point of arresting him. That would have been most excellent.” He busied himself with his quill. “I fear I did not foresee him rowing away in that fashion.”

  “Fallon was in that,” Justin snapped. “Seizing Fort Johnson. As a gentleman-volunteer. Him, a gentleman. I begged Captain Thornborough of the Tamar to let us reinforce and hold the fort. He insisted on evacuating the garrison. Imagine, letting those damned dogs walk in without firing a shot. After they’d stumbled around in the swamp all night, we could’ve taken the lot with a corporal’s guard.”

  “You leave that to Fletcher, Browne, and Cunningham. If they live, they will pay for their haste. The time is not yet.”

  Justin jerked to his feet and leaned against the mantel, peering into the fire, wishing there were rebels writhing in the flames. “The time is not yet, you say. Well, the time had better be soon. The damned rebels are winning, Father. Six months ago I had a hundred men meeting in the stables. I could’ve fielded as good a troop of light cavalry as any in the British army. Today I’ve twenty. I don’t even know where half of them are. A dozen have signed the Association and march in godforsaken Council of Safety patrols.”

  “Listen to me, Justin. It all marches as I predicted, does it not? Everywhere the rebels run wild. They seize forts, yes. And Royal governors flee for their lives along the entire seaboard. But the rebels are so swelled with themselves they can see no chance of failure. Soon they may take the final, fatal step and declare themselves independent.”

  “I see nothing to be happy about in that.”

  “This unity of theirs is”—he held up two fingers less than an inch apart—“so deep. Everywhere, as with Drayton here, men build their own circles of power, with only the barest regard for anything else. A few hard blows, and all will shatter. And the blows come. So. Within the year, as I have said, the British will come. When they lay siege to Charlestown, you will ride forward with not a hundred men but a thousand.”

  Justin was thinking. Something was not as it seemed. “Father, you’re exuberant. You don’t become emotional about anything in the future, however certain it is.”

  Jean-Baptiste allowed himself a slight smile. The boy was right. It would be so sweet. “A man has arrived, a man who—” A half-hearted rap came at the door, and his smile broadened. “Enter.”

  The man who called himself Toller closed the door behind him. “Your nigger said I was to come in when you said, but he made me come in the back way. Where’s he get off ordering a white man—”

  “Silence!” Jean-Baptiste’s voice cracked like a whip, and he was pleased to see Toller jump. “Be thankful you are allowed in this house at all. I had thought to let Job peel your hide with his whip. A bad example, to have a white man flogged by a black, but considering the money you have stolen from me, it might be worth it.” Toller began to stammer, the elder Fourrier’s glare pushing him into incoherence. “What? Do you claim that you have not been a thief? That you are worth the thousand pounds?”

  Somehow Toller managed to get control of his tongue. “No, sir. Yes, sir. I mean—It weren’t that way. I went straight to that Timothy Cavanaugh. Found him in no more than a month. Only he got suspicious. He were a strong bugger for an old one. I had to slip steel under his ribs to get his fingers off my throat. And then in Ireland, them damned Irish pigs wouldn’t give spit to the likes of me.”

  “Ireland!” Justin’s gaze jerked from Toller to his father. “What was he after in Ireland?”

  Jean-Baptiste’s smile blossomed like an evil flower. It felt as good as taking a virgin. “The evidence to hang Michael Fallon.”

  “Hang Fallon?” For a moment a light flared in Justin’s eyes; Toller backed away with a muttered curse. Then it faded. “The governor’s gone. The only authority is the rebels. Fallon’s one of them, for God’s sake.”

  “There are ways.” Jean-Baptiste’s voice hardened. “I would not like to think you have come here without what I need.”

  Toller hastily pulled a dirty, folded broadside from his coat pocket. “There you are, sir.” He fumbled it open and laid it on the desk in front of the old man. “There you are.”

  Across the top it said:

  WANTED

  FOR THE MOST FOUL AND

  HEINOUS CRIME OF MURDER

  MICHAEL SHANE FALLON

  Jean-Baptiste’s smile broadened malignantly.

  Elizabeth rose heavily from where she knelt by the study door and moved to the stairs. She climbed with one hand on the bannister and one on her swollen stomach.

  Justin alternated betweens smug pride at getting her with child and disappointment that their love-making had had to cease. She missed it, too, with a sick-feeling hunger, the tangled variations, the sometimes pain. He didn’t come to her bed now for those panting, sweat-slick nights. The thought came that he didn’t really see her any differently from the women he now spent his nights with. Except that she could give him heirs, of course. The one in her, and little Robert, just turned four, asleep above.

  When she opened the door Mauma Rosa stopped rocking and made as if to rise. She motioned the woman back to her chair and leaned against the bedpost to study her child as he slept, and to contrast his true father’s firm gentleness with Justin’s barely controlled violence.

  The boy shifted on the coverlet with a murmured sigh. Was that how Michael had looked as a child? It was impossible to think he’d once been so angelic. But the child proved it could be. Robert had his father’s face. She at least could see it clearly.

  She sighed and sagged against the bedpost. Yes, she could see. How long before others could? How long before Justin saw? There had to be a way out. Unbidden, the secrets she’d heard below flooded her mind. The Cavanaugh man was dead, murdered by that common little creature. And he’d brought something that would hang Michael.

  Bile rose in her throat, and she swayed. Michael, mounting the gallows. Michael, swinging on the end of a rope. Michael, his hands and mouth stilled forever. Her thoughts raced like a squirrel in a trap. If Michael were dead, Justin could not see him in the child. If Michael were dead, she’d be safe. If Michael were dead—Pain ripped through her, and the room spun off into darkness.

  19

  The five schooners moved down the Cooper River, through the November chill of 1775, little faster than the tide could carry them. Even from the second-floor veranda of this house on the Bay, Michael could see the first four were hulks. Could the British? He swung his spyglass to HMS Tamar and HMS Cherokee, anchored well out in the harbor, off Haddrell’s Point.

  No activity there. Wait. They were beginning to shift, both of them. But just at anchor. They must have anchored on a cable spring. Now they brought broadsides to bear. They weren’t sailing up to engage.

  A scrap of conversation drifted to him from the girls farther down the Warings’ veranda, and he stiffened.

  “Please, Gabrielle,” one of the Waring girls was saying. “No one will tell us about Elizabeth’s baby if you don’t.” A chorus of agreement echoed her.

  “But why? It’s been nearly a month,” Gabrielle protested. “Oh, very well. But briefly. The baby came early, very early, and suddenly. Only the quickness of Robert’s mauma kept both Elizabeth and the baby from dying.” Murmurs of sympathy interrupted her, but she pressed on.

  “When I arrived Elizabeth was pale, but mending, and the babe was crying. There was nothing for me to do but make posset for her and sing lullabies to young Master Gerard.”

  Michael touched the leather-cased miniature in his pocket and angrily jerked the spyglass back to his eye. The schooners were turning for the Hog Island Channel. Gabrielle touched him on the arm, and he jumped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “I thought you were in deep conversation with your friends.”

  “Deep conversation!” She glanced fondly at the chattering young women clustered like silk flowers at the far end of the veranda. “All they want to talk about are babies and gowns and parties. With a battle to be fought under our noses. It’s preposterous.”