City of Dreams (63 page)

“Amba not be scared of no punishment. You know that, Mistress Jennet.”

“You shouldn’t call me that now that I’m a married lady. I’m Mistress DaSilva now.”

“Wiped your bottom until you be old enough to do it for yourself. No be changing the way I call you.” The shorn head inclined toward Jennet’s belly. “You be with child. Your mama been thinking you wouldn’t never give her no grandbaby. Asked me to make a spell would make it happen.”

“And did you?”

“What you be thinking?”

“I think you want white people to imagine that you know special African magic. But you don’t, Amba. It’s a fraud. Like all your talk of being a queen. You’re a black slave, same as any other.”

When she was little, when she and Phoebe used to sit in the kitchen and listen to Amba’s tales of being royalty in Africa, she had believed every word. Now all she could think of was the way Amba always managed to make it seem as if the white people were the slaves and she the owner. And the way she’d made Jan Brinker break his promise to tell no one where Jennet was. “If you had real magical power, you’d have escaped years ago. Gone back to wherever you came from so you could be a queen again. But you’re still here and you’re still a slave. —Oh, Amba, don’t! You mustn’t cry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said such things. I didn’t mean—”

Amba had turned away. Her shoulders were heaving though she didn’t make a sound. It was the first time Jennet had ever seen her weep. “Amba, please. What’s wrong? I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“You be right.” Amba turned. The tears had gone as quickly as they came. “When I need the magic most, I ain’t got enough of it. But you do. You got more magic than your papa. I been listenin’ to everything your mama and papa been saying these near six years since you ran off and got married. Solomon DaSilva, he can make anything he want happen. I need him to want to make something happen.”

“My husband isn’t here, Amba. And he can’t send you back to your home.”

“You be talking foolish. Like when you be a little girl. Amba didn’t come to get herself sent back to her home people. Amba came because of Phoebe.”

“Phoebe! They’ve found her, then?” Amba nodded. “And the boy who was with her?”

“Jethro. He be dead.”

“I see. Well, he knew what would happen if he was caught. Phoebe may as well take her flogging and have done with it. She brought it on herself. Anyway, I don’t think anything I’d say would stop her getting sent to the whipping cage.”

“They no be going to whip my girl.”

“No? Very well, I’m glad to hear it. You know I’m fond of Phoebe.”

“They be going to burn my girl dead.”

“Where did you get such an idea? Papa wouldn’t let that happen. Phoebe’s not worth a penny to him if she’s dead.”

“Ain’t your papa going to be burning my girl. Not that Craddock man, neither. Be the redcoats.” Jennet stared at her in disbelief. “My Phoebe and her Jethro, they be found near the land of the other white tribe. The ones be your enemy.”

“The French,” Jennet said. “Sweet heaven. They were found near the Canadian border?”

“Yes. Redcoats be saying my Phoebe and her Jethro be telling the enemy tribe secrets from this place, so they got to die. They shot Jethro. Now them redcoats be bringing Phoebe back here. Going to burn her in her home place. Front of City Hall in a slow fire. Just like what happened to her papa.”

Rosa Jollette had a small parlor near the large drawing room where the gentlemen came to drink and play cards before moving on to other pleasures. Jennet knew Rosa was always there in the early evening before the guests arrived. She pushed open the door without knocking. Her entry was unexpected enough so she caught the older woman gritting her teeth at the sight of her employer’s wife.

“I need to speak with you.”

“I’m at your service, of course, Mistress DaSilva.” All sweetness and smiles now. “But if it could wait until tomorrow, perhaps? The gentlemen will be arriving shortly.”

“It can’t wait.” Jennet had not been invited to sit, but she did so anyway, drawing a chair with carved wooden legs and a brocaded seat closer to Rosa Jollette’s elegant writing table. “There are English officers who come here, are there not? I believe I’ve spied men in uniform in the drawing room.”

“All the most influential men of New York come to this house, mistress. I have labored hard to make it a place worthy of their—”

“Yes. Following my husband’s instructions and using his money.”

It was the first time she’d spoken to the woman with any hint of authority. Flossie had pressed her relentlessly to assume the role of mistress of Solomon’s financial affairs and put Rosa Jollette in her place. Said she should take over such tasks as the daily counting of cash in the little room down in the cellar, and receiving the proceeds from Solomon’s other interests. Jennet had refused because, she told herself, if she did those things it was an admission that Solomon was not going to return, and that it was up to her to assume responsibility for protecting what was his and her child’s. Flossie had done it in her stead, but Rosa Jollette knew who was her real enemy in this time of uncertainty. She looked at Jennet with barely suppressed loathing.

Jennet pretended not to notice. “What rank of redcoat is the highest you’re likely to receive of an evening?”

Rosa Jollette’s eyes narrowed. “That’s hard to say, Mistress DaSilva. We frequently have a number of lieutenants. Sometimes a major. Even a general or two. I can’t know who will call until they arrive.”

“Very well. This evening, whatever the hour, you’re to send for me the moment you see any English officer who is at least a lieutenant. The very instant. Do you understand?”

“Of course I understand, Mistress DaSilva. But I assure you the master would not approve of—”

“I will be the judge of what my husband does or does not approve. And I daresay he’ll be interested in my opinion of his employees when he returns.” Jennet stood and looked down at the other woman. “The first redcoat who’s a lieutenant or better,” she repeated. “The very moment he arrives.”

The redcoat turned out to be a colonel. Jennet saw him in the tiny parlor, having first evicted Rosa Jollette and spent a moment making her preparations.

The new gowns Flossie had ordered had not yet arrived from the mantua-maker, so Jennet borrowed a red lace frock from the whore closest to her size. It was decidedly tight at the waist, and her breasts were so much fuller now that she was carrying, they were barely contained by the bodice. The colonel stared at her appreciatively. “To what do I owe the honor of this meeting, Mistress DaSilva? I am, I must say, quite surprised to find you here.”

“I doubt that, Colonel … Fenwick, did you say?”

“I did. Colonel Alden Fenwick of His Majesty’s Fourth Regiment of Horse. At your service, mistress.”

The uniform was splendid. Any man would have looked handsome with so much gold braid decorating his crimson coat. And that little bow of the head was most winning. Jennet had never before had dealings with a high-ranking British officer. She found the manner of his speech and the way he looked truly charming. Which had nothing to do with the fact that she despised him for his insolence.

“It’s not often a man visits a bordello and is greeted by the wife of the owner.”

“You mock me, Colonel Fenwick. The whole town knows that I’ve been burnt out of my home and made a fugitive, and for no reason except my husband’s race. So why is it a surprise to find me sheltering in the one place where I’m likely to be protected?”

“I’m sure the civilian authorities are trying to discover who it was set fire to your home, mistress. And can offer you the protection of—”

“The authorities, as you call them, are trying to discover nothing. Everyone knows who torched my home. They prefer to turn a blind eye.” Jennet snapped her red lace fan shut and leaned forward, giving Fenwick a still more excellent view of her all but naked breasts. “Forgive me, Colonel. You have come seeking pleasure, and it is not my intention to waste your time speaking about my personal misfortunes. I wish to discuss another matter.”

Fenwick, she noted, looked intrigued. With her tits, of course, but also with her words. “Indeed. What matter is that?”

“My father’s black slave Phoebe. She ran away. A foolish business involving another slave whom she wished to marry, whatever that might mean among the Negroes. Phoebe was recently captured, by soldiers as it happened. I’m told she’s under sentence of death and being brought to New York to be publicly burned. As a warning to others.”

“I have not heard of the matter.”

“You may take me at my word, Colonel. It is as I say.”

“Very well. Then it must be that she was apprehended within forty miles of Quebec. Bringing intelligence to the enemy.”

“Close to Quebec, yes. But Phoebe had no intelligence to bring to anyone. She’s a slave who wanted to marry and was refused permission. She is guilty of willfulness and not knowing her place, nothing more. Admittedly she is a fine apothecary and in that respect might have been useful to the French. But she knows less of military matters than I do. And, I assure you, I know nothing at all.”

Fenwick cocked his head and studied her. “Somehow,” he said softly, “I do not get the impression, Mistress DaSilva, that there is anything to do with men about which you’re ignorant.”

“You flatter me, sir. Though being married to my husband, I have of course learned some things.”

Fenwick’s mouth was dry. This luscious creature seemed to be offering herself to him in return for whatever he could do for some blackbird caught trafficking with the enemy. God knew she was better-looking than anything he’d find in La Jollette’s drawing room. Hell, she might well be the most beautiful woman he’d seen in New York. “Tell me, mistress, how is it that we’re free to have this conversation? Where is your husband this fine evening?”

“Gone to Philadelphia.” The lie came easily. She’d planned it, along with everything else about this meeting. “It struck my husband that if he could negotiate a better arrangement with the Pennsylvania millers about their flour, a unified price perhaps, New Yorkers might be more inclined to leave us in peace.”

“I see. That’s a long journey, isn’t it? All the way to Philadelphia. He might be gone a month or more.”

“Indeed. At least a month.”

He’d never seen eyes so dark a blue. The color of the ocean when the sun shone on it. A man could drown in such eyes. “You must be lonely without your husband, Mistress DaSilva.” He leaned toward her, his face almost touching hers.

“Oh, I am,” Jennet said. “But we women are accustomed to waiting for you men to conclude your affairs before you can pay attention to us.” She opened her fan and slipped it between them, her eyes continuing to smile at him above the lacy edge. While he was staring at her, almost salivating, her free hand dipped into the drawer of Rosa Jollette’s writing table and withdrew the stack of coins she’d placed there earlier. Thank God Flossie had taken over the finances. She’d have been hard-pressed to get a wooden penny from the madam. “Fortunately, Colonel, my husband left me well able to do whatever might be necessary in his absence.”

Fenwick heard the clink of the coins. He drew back, eyes narrowed, darting from her to the money, no longer sure of exactly what was happening.

Jennet lowered her fan and let him see her radiant smile. “Fifty Dutch
daalders.
Colonel.” She pushed the stack of coins closer to his side of the table. “Recompense for doing me and my family a simple favor.”

Fenwick came from wealth, but like most British officers he was a second son. His elder brother would inherit, not he. The allowance his father made him was a pittance, the salary paid him by the Crown little more. And there were uniforms, and arms, and horses to be bought, and servants’ wages—at least three servants, given his rank. The gold coins winked at him in the light of the candles. “A favor to do with this slave, I take it.”

“With Phoebe, yes. I simply require that you see that the sentence is remanded and my father’s property restored to him. I’m sure a gentleman of such high rank as you can find a way to do that.” Fenwick said nothing. He did not, Jennet noted, protest that he could have no influence over the sentence. “Phoebe is no spy, Colonel Fenwick. Burning her would be a waste of a skilled slave with years of labor left.”

“Carrying intelligence to the French is a capital offense. Runaway slaves caught within forty miles of the Canadian border are executed. It’s very difficult—”

Too late. He’d made plain that he could step in if he wanted to. All they were discussing now was the price. A second stack of
daalders
joined the first. A hundred coins, more than his income for the next five years. “If Phoebe is returned to my father’s house unharmed, I assure you there will be an equal sum waiting for you here immediately afterward.”

“That is a great deal of money, Mistress DaSilva.”

Jennet shrugged. “Not more than the cost of a good slave, Colonel Fenwick. Of course it would easily pay for more than one fine steed, and a fair number of splendid uniforms.”

Fenwick reached out and swept both piles of coins toward him. “The balance to be paid in coin, here?”