“With those prices I’d think you’d bring your rice down to sell instead of storing all of it in that warehouse.” He frowned suddenly. “Or almost all of it.”

  “Nearly all rice is paid for with Continental paper,” she said carefully. “I’ll sell only for gold.”

  “Do you hear from Michael often?”

  “Of course.” The sudden change of subject caught her by surprise and wrenched at her till she could hardly keep her face calm. One letter since October, on that shipload of guns and powder he’d captured. There couldn’t be more. They couldn’t all have been captured. And she wrote to him at Brest every week, and posted them on the first available ship. She’d tried stopping for two weeks, and felt so guilty she’d written three letters on one day to get them all on a ship leaving for France. Damn him. She smiled as if her thoughts were the most pleasant in the world. “Often.”

  “But I don’t suppose you write about what you’re doing,” he mused. He eyed her narrowly. “Michael has been like a son to me, and I had a daughter not much older than you, though she’s lost to me, now.” The pain in his voice drove all thoughts of letters from her head. “For these reasons, I take it on myself to speak to you. I know what you’re doing with the coasting schooners.”

  “What—? What do you mean?” His words chilled her.

  “You’ve been barging rice down to the mouth of the Santee and loading Michael’s coasters there. Then they work their way down the coast to trade in the French and Dutch West Indies. I know the profits are large. Two ships coming in can completely pay for the loss and cargo of a third. But it’s dangerous.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, but looked around quickly to see they weren’t overheard. “Scores of people are doing it. Strict non-import and non-export would kill Charlestown, and I don’t mean the loss of trade. Where’s everything from salt to coals going to come from without trade? It’s not as if I’m trading with the British, after all.”

  “You’re right, child, right in every word you say. But so am I. There are still men in this city, Drayton’s friends, who’d like nothing better than to proscribe Michael Fallon’s wife for breaking the Association. I must go now, but I tell you again, be careful. What I hear, others can hear. Be very careful.”

  At home, she closeted herself in Michael’s study. That was where he always went to think. Maybe it’d help her, too.

  Three times, now, she’d sent a coaster out, and all three had returned safely with valuable cargos and hard money. At that moment one was waiting near the mouth of the Santee, keeping out of sight of Americans and British alike, waiting for a load of rice to be brought down from the warehouse.

  Despite the fact that many of the most prominent men in the state were doing the same thing, she’d been careful. Or thought she had. One by one she’d picked the captains for their loyalty to Michael. They’d picked their own crews, and done so as if discovery would mean disaster. The rub was that it might. She’d worried about a return to strict enforcement, about moves against those who were known to have broken the Association. Why hadn’t she thought of those who’d move against her just because she was Michael Fallon’s wife?

  They were there. Satellites of the Council of Safety, condemning Michael for being fainthearted in the American cause, though their strength seemed to be demanding proofs of loyalty from others. Disgruntled Liberty Boys, angry at seeing their power fade, feeling betrayed by Michael because he’d risen in the world while they still worked with their hands or spent their days swilling rum. They were the ones who’d cry for an example to be made. They were the ones who’d peek, and poke, and pry, until they discovered what was going on.

  Maybe they already had. Mr. Carver knew. And as his influence waned, was it likely he’d still be among the first to hear things? Perhaps they already knew. Perhaps they were already preparing to move against her. Perhaps—

  With an effort she got hold of herself. Better to have done with it. She took up pen and paper, and began to write.

  She tugged at the bell-pull, and the butler entered silently. “Have a livery boy take this to Daniel. He’s with Tir Alainn’s cutter at Motte’s Wharf. It’s for the captain of the Santee Flyer. Daniel knows where to find him. And tell him it’s urgent.”

  The letter going out the door took her worries with it. Captain Rogers would go right ahead with loading, but he’d bring the rice to Charlestown to sell. The danger was gone. The worry was gone. She felt almost like dancing. When the butler announced an old friend’s arrival, she rushed to meet her with a light heart.

  “Sally, how good to see you.”

  “And you, my dear. You look wonderful, though how you keep that smooth skin at Tir Alainn is beyond me.” Sally Howe was a diminutive blonde who ruled her husband with an iron rod. She smiled at Gabrielle and nodded. “And I must say you look ready for a soiree. Now don’t say a word. I know you say you won’t go to so much as an at-home until your husband comes home, but this one’s special.”

  “You’re going too fast for me,” Gabrielle laughed. “What party? And what’s special about it?”

  “Why, Antonia Waring’s levee. Haven’t you heard? She sent me especially to bring you. There’ll be nobility there. A German, Baron de Kalb, and a real French Marquis, the Marquis de La Fayette. They landed at Georgetown, and Benjamin Huger brought them to town. It’s going to be the grandest assembly of the year, my dear. Three orchestras. Dancing in the garden. You must come.”

  It was the mention of dancing that decided her. Damn Michael and his silence. “I’ll come, Sally. It’s ages since I’ve danced. Oh, but what will I wear? I haven’t had any new gowns made for I don’t know how long. You’ll have to help me choose. Martha? Martha!”

  The levee was everything that Sally promised. Musicians played in the downstairs drawing room, and more on the veranda. A third assemblage was in the garden for dancing under the trees. In fact, there was dancing everywhere. She was swept into a country dance as soon as she was through the door, and two more before she caught her breath.

  All the talk was of the noblemen. Rainbow clusters of women, carefully coiffured, put bejeweled heads together. This Baron de Kalb is a positive giant, my dear. The young marquis is so handsome he’s almost beautiful. And the way he talks—lovely. In spite of the talk she didn’t see those rare and wonderful noblemen anywhere. But in the garden she did come on Elizabeth, in a green velvet dress that made her pale skin almost luminous.

  “You may go, Solange,” Elizabeth said to the black woman at her shoulder. She regarded Gabrielle with a vulpine smile. “So you’ve finally come out of hiding. I thought all that pining for a far-off husband would wear thin eventually.”

  Gabrielle’s face tightened, but she was determined not to let anything spoil her evening. “Is that a new maid, Elizabeth? What happened to Samantha?”

  “Yes, Solange is new. Samantha could never remember her proper place. I had to sell her.”

  Gabrielle gasped. “You sold her?” Selling a house slave would be bad enough, but Samantha had been with Elizabeth since childhood. “How could you?”

  “Don’t lecture me. I won’t be lectured by any woman who ran off in the middle of the night to get married.” She almost choked on the last word. What had Michael seen in the girl, anyway? She was pretty enough, Elizabeth decided grudgingly, but even after a child she was a girl. Michael had always had an eye for real women.

  Gabrielle refused to be drawn. Well, perhaps just a little. “And Justin? Is he here this evening?”

  “To be arrested?” Elizabeth smirked. “That’s not likely, is it?” With a throaty laugh she left Gabrielle. She’d just seen what she was after.

  Baron de Kalb didn’t see her coming, and she had a leisurely chance to examine him. God, but he was nearly the giant they named him, a broad, towering, muscular man. She eyed him from head to toe, and bit at her lip as a shiver ran through her. When she looked up, he was smiling at her.

  “Oh. I beg pardon, Baron. You, you do speak English, don’t you? English?”

  “I speak little bit English.” His voice was a bass rumble.

  “You speak wonderful English.” She laughed and spoke with naughty emphasis. “But all the ladies want to do something other than talk with you. I mean dance, of course.”

  He stared into her decolletage openly and appreciatively, and his smile became knowing. “You one Gott verdammt good-looking woman.” He seized her wrist.

  “Why, why, Baron. That’s, that’s quite a compliment.” She was flustered. His crudity was more than she’d bargained for. And yet, there was something—appealing—about it.

  “Endless weeks on boat I have been, with no company but horses and a Frenchman. Now to some gottverlassen place, this Philadelphia, I must ride. Bei Gott, I want to ride a woman. Zum Teufel, woman! You think we dance? We dance laying down. So! You want to yell help, I let you go, and go find a woman for me. Otherwise, we go find corner in stable. Now answer me.”

  Elizabeth’s mouth trembled as she tried to form an answer. It was what she’d been after, but not like this. They’d dance. They’d go in to supper together. And after, there’d be more wine, and a gentle seduction. But he was treating her like any common blowze, like a tavern wench who could be bought for a few shillings. He didn’t care who or what she was. To him she was just a woman he wanted to take. A queer thrill shot through her. She wet her lips. “I won’t yell help.”

  Gabrielle watched, stunned, as Elizabeth and the huge Bavarian walked back toward the stables. When he grabbed Elizabeth she’d started to scream. Then she realized Elizabeth didn’t want help. It froze her to the spot.

  “He is crude, even for a German,” came a pleasantly accented voice over her shoulder, “and very rough on women. If you wish it, I will rescue your friend.”

  “She—I—” Blushing furiously, Gabrielle whirled. He was a slender young man, richly dressed even among the planters, and boyishly handsome to a striking degree. “What I meant to say was, my, my friend doesn’t need to be rescued. And if, by chance, she does at some later time, I’m certain she’s capable of calling for help.” She wished he’d stop smiling at her like that. She was a married woman, now. She had to remember that.

  “I think it is just as well that I do not have to antagonize him,” the young man said. “He will be very, very useful, that one. He knows infantry, for all he does not know the difference between a lady and a—Forgive me. I am so long in his company, I begin to speak as he does. And I forget myself. I am Marie Joseph Paul Ives Roch Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de La Fayette.”

  She wasn’t certain what she said, but in some fashion they were inside, dancing, and he was calling her Gabrielle, and she was calling him Gilbert. It came as a shock to her that, for all his accomplished air, he was but twenty, a year younger than she herself. He really was just a boy. Not a man, like Michael. The thought of him, and of the letters he hadn’t written, roused her anger. She threw herself whole-heartedly into enjoying the charming young marquis.

  It amused him that her name was French and yet she had only a few words of the language. He taught her more, and they laughed over her pronunciation. So much seemed to amuse him, and for some reason it all amused her, too. She laughed at his stories of the court, and danced with him time and time again, with wine between. At supper he claimed the right to carry her plate to the buffet, and to sit by her. She fed him cold shrimps with her fingers, and he kissed her fingertips after each one. After, there was more music, more wine, more dancing. And then they were dancing in the garden, with only the crickets and the stars for company.

  He tilted up her chin and kissed her, and for a moment she kissed him back. Suddenly she pulled free of him, gasping, heart pounding. “Gilbert, no. I’m married.”

  He drew her back to him so gently she barely realized how she’d gotten back in his arms. “Ah. One of those stout merchants, perhaps?”

  “He’s a privateer captain. Please, Gilbert.”

  His fingers ran gently along her cheek, turning her face once more up to his in the moonlight. “A brave man, then. I apologize, to you and to him, for thinking any other kind of man could have won you. No, Gabrielle, do not tremble. There is no need to fear me. I take only a few kisses. We are a lonely man and a lonely woman, seeking solace. There can be no sin nor harm in that.”

  As his lips came down on hers she thought, damn Michael. This would teach him to write her.

  23

  The fireplace of the new house on Queen Street was large. It took the chill from the air, but Gabrielle still felt the cold. A copy of the Gazette lay on the table beside her, but she didn’t bother to read it. The news would be bad. 1778 looked to be as bleak as 1777. Word of Saratoga had been a bright spot in a year filled with disaster. Defeat piled on defeat. Brandywine. German-town. Philadelphia abandoned. The Congress fled to York, in western Pennsylvania. And the rumors. Washington’s army was disintegrating at a place called Valley Forge. Washington was being given dictatorial powers—made a new King George. Michael was off, God alone knew where, and his cause was falling apart.

  She winced. Be damned to the cause. It was Michael that mattered. Two months past the time he’d set as the latest for getting home. Suppose he was dead. Suppose he’d died while she was kissing Gilbert.

  That brought a bitter laugh. There was no possible way for Michael to be away so long and remain faithful. She loved him, but she knew him. Then damn it, why did she feel so guilty about kissing Gilbert a few times under the moonlight?

  Martha scurried in like a ruffled hen. “Miss Gabrielle. Miss Gabrielle, it time we leave.”

  “Leave? What are you talking about, Martha?”

  “The fire, Miss Gabrielle. The fire. It done got worse. It spreading.”

  “Nonsense. The Fire Company will soon have—” For the first time she became aware of a flickering, red glow through the windows.

  “They say the Fire Company can’t stop it no more. They say the Library Society done burn up with all the books. They say the whole city going to burn. Miss Gabrielle, don’t go near that window.”

  Gabrielle threw open the window and stared out at a scene from hell. The night sky was swept by flames billowing into the air. They seemed to go on for blocks and blocks. Nearly everything between Church Street and the Bay must be burning. And the edge of it was no more than a block away.

  “We’re not leaving, Martha.”

  “Miss Gabrielle, this ain’t no time for being brave. This a time for running.”

  “Michael had this house built for me. I can’t lose it.” She’d moved into it before it was even finished, so he’d come to her there. Sooner or later, he’d come. “Get all the liverymen up, Martha. Boys too. And all the stablehands. Get buckets. I want a steady steam of water over this house. And over those on either side, too. Well, what are you waiting for?”

  The slaves, rousted from their beds, looked fearfully to the red-splashed night sky, but Gabrielle soothed them, calmed them, bullied them, anything to save the house. She was everywhere. She climbed into the attic, up the ladder to stick her head through the trapdoor onto the tile roof. Ash and even burning sticks and shingles rained down continuously, but two stablemen hoisted buckets of water from the garden on a rope and doused everything. Slaves on the side balconies, hanging out the windows, on the front verandas, splashed bucket after bucket of water against the house. It dripped and glistened as if after a heavy rain, lurid in the firelight. The roar and crack of the flames could be heard now, the crash as a building fell in.

  A rider reined in beside her as she stood in front of the house. “You’ll have to leave immediately. There’s only a prayer of stopping it short of—” He gasped as he got a good look at her, in the light from a collapsing house.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Angrily she wiped at a smoke-smudged cheek; her hand was even dirtier. “And I’m not leaving.” A half dozen slaves with shovels ran up, and she turned to them. “Begin digging in the garden. Fill buckets for the men on the roof. We can’t spare any more water from the sides of the house.”

  “Ma‘am, you must go. You can’t save your house like this. If the fire gets this far—” She kept right on directing the work. He tried another tack. “Ma’am, listen to me, please. It’s said the British started this fire, and may still be in the city—” He shied back as she rounded on him fiercely.

  “Damn you! Damn you! Why aren’t you doing something instead of trying to frighten a woman? Anything that happens in this city those same few poor sailors get the blame. Now get out of here, and leave me to save my house. Jubilo! Hercules! Go up and help on the roof.”

  She stalked away to make her rounds again. All the men were working. All the housemaids and the liveryboys too. Then she saw it. Cleo fell out of line, tumbling to the ground in a faint of exhaustion.

  She took the woman’s place in the line of slaves passing water-laden buckets to the house. The man gasped, goggle-eyed, at her; the next man seemed almost afraid to take the bucket from her. She didn’t see their surprise. She took the heavy buckets and swung them with a small grunt of effort on down the line.

  The flow of water went on. And Gabrielle worked until she worked in a fog. Pivot, take the bucket, pivot, give the bucket, and never see the man it was taken from or the man it was given to, never see anything but the endless buckets. A hundred. A thousand. On and on.

  It was Martha’s scream that brought her back from semiconsciousness. “Miss Gabrielle! What you doing?”

  Startled, Gabrielle lost her grip, and the bucket dropped, splashing its water over the ground and her dress. She bent to pick it up and was suddenly aware of pain shooting through her back and up her thighs. Her legs quivered. “Fighting the fire,” she said dully. “Got to fight the—”