Ring of Secrets (44 page)

When her grandfather
what?
For a long moment he stared, agape. “He…she…July…Of course, that head injury.” And why had she not told him while she confessed her inability to live without him?

That answer was obvious enough. She didn't trust him. Not enough.

“You must be her beau.” Viney sank down to her knees again. “The way you say her name…”

“I intend to marry her.” Or did. Assuming she could avoid the noose long enough to walk up the aisle.

Blast. He looked around, wishing for a sturdy post to lean on. Or strike. He had to make do with rubbing at the back of his neck. “How could she be so stupid as to get involved in something like this? She knows the consequences.”

Viney folded her hands in her lap and regarded him evenly. “I know not what ‘this' you mean, sir, but she would have had valid reasons. She is a good soul. One of the only people I have met in years who cared for the heart beneath the grime.”

Ben raised the letter he held, but the words were empty. Nothing but the prattle of the pseudo Winter and an odd little
H
in the corner. “Yes, she is all that is good. Which is why I cannot fathom this.” But then, he had not come to New York thinking the spy he sought would be a base creature like the one mumbling to Arnold outside. He had known he—and she, apparently—would be someone trustworthy and trusted if they indeed put their hands to such vital information. And Winter, through Fairchild, had overheard plenty.

But
Winter.
Stooping to such levels, putting herself in a position to
be hanged. For a cause in which she had never given the slightest hint that she believed, not even to him.

He could not be angry over the secrets, not when he had plenty of them himself. But to think of the danger she was in, the general outside determined to see her undone…

When he suspected George of being involved, there had been fear. But not like this.

“Never mind. I will find it later,” Arnold said outside. “It hardly matters. We will know soon enough if she is guilty. And if so, she will pay the price for it.”

The second man grunted. “Seems to me, sir, that 'tis obvious she is not working alone. And given what I have seen of her, 'tis equally obvious she has no part in the brains of it.”

“We will keep an eye on her. Perhaps she will lead us to whomever else she is working with.”

“Now see here, General, I told you from the start that I have business taking me out of town this afternoon. I'm happy to pick it up again when I come back next week, but—”

“Fine, fine. Their letters are never closer together than a fortnight anyway.”

Ben paid no heed to their farewells. His gaze snagged on that unobtrusive
H
again. What in thunder?

Heat—the primary developer for invisible inks. Of course. He turned to Viney and motioned toward her lamp. “Do you mind if I borrow your flame for a moment?”

She lifted her brows but waved her acquiescence.

Ben slid over to it and held the paper up. Close, then closer to the open flame. Closer still until the smell of scorching paper filled his nostrils, until a faint sizzle reached his ears. Until the invisible ink filling the space between the lines of nonsense turned a golden brown.

What fun it has been to be part of your experiment! I did so enjoy helping you create the stain and acid. But alas, the current climate being what it is, we had better call a halt to our game before someone thinks us really involved in espionage.
'
Tis a shame we never found a reliable formula, but perhaps you can try again after this dreadful war is over, when it will not seem such a suspicious hobby.

Perhaps he would have smiled at what was an obvious attempt to explain away the evidence of her involvement, had it not spoken to the fact that she must know someone was closing in. Must be frightened. What if she did something foolish? Something that got her killed?

Blast it all, this was precisely why he had hoped no one he knew was involved in this.

And she wondered at his lack of faith. How could he have faith, the substance of what one hoped for, when his hopes had shattered so fully?

“Is it as bad as all that?” Viney cradled her cup in her hands and regarded him with a solemnity strangely colored with cheer.

“Worse.” He lowered the singed paper and let his shoulders droop. “Winter is involved in something that could get her killed. For months I have been trying to determine who—and it was her all along.”

The girl, for some reason he could not fathom, smiled. “How fortunate you discovered it, then, so you can help her while those men outside are about other business and so paying no attention to her.”

His frown felt harsh on his brow. “Fortunate? Are you daft? The very hour I accept her challenge to pray about all that is going wrong in my life, I learn this about the woman I love—and you call it
fortunate
?”

She traced a finger around the dented edge of her cup. “Perhaps this seems like a blow to you, whatever it is. But would it have been better if you had
not
found it out and those men out there got ahold of her?”

He folded his arms over his chest. “It would have better had she not been guilty of it at all.”

“So you will blame the Lord for the decisions she has made? Decisions that I suspect run deeper than anyone else could know?” She turned her head away to cough in a handkerchief. It came away stained red.

Decisions no one else could know…another something he could well understand. “Then if Providence were leading me to it, He could have led me sooner so I could help her before she was discovered and removed her from the city entirely.”

Again she smiled. “When would you have done this, sir? Three months ago? Six? A year? And yet if you had, I never would have met
her. And so she would not have given me the gift that allowed me to survive these last few months without inviting anyone into my tent.”

Though she stated that last part with calm, he shuddered on her behalf. She was a mere child. She ought not have to suffer such things.

But Winter, somehow, had helped save her from it. “You are saying that the Lord sees what I cannot.”

“More, sir. I am saying that this very day is the right and proper time for whatever is unfolding. That every step you have taken until now has led you here according to His perfect will.”

Led him here? Ben frowned. To get to this particular place, at this particular time—to meet this particular girl who, against all odds, knew Winter—he had followed Arnold, thanks to that verse, and he had found the letter that fluttered his way. Only because he had paused to pray, as Winter urged him. To which he would not have been receptive had he not been contemplating all he stood to lose.

A reality that would not have been so forceful had the news of Father's death not reached them when it did, had he not been at Rivington's that day after Fairchild had met with Arnold's unsavory contact.

Yet he may not have believed all this possible of Winter had he not first discovered Townsend's involvement, which certainly would not have happened had he not stumbled upon the right information connecting him to Woodhull, Brewster, and Tallmadge. Information all made clear by those verses.

And how much information had come from Fairchild? Yet he never would have known the man had they not been pursuing the same woman. He never would have dared approach Winter, though, had he not needed a well-connected courtship as an excuse to enter the society he had long shunned.

Winter. A woman he had only met because of an urge to go to that first party, where he saw the dichotomy in her behavior. But he had gone because he had a mission—one he had never questioned, yet which had come to him by what he had deemed an accident.

One random line in a letter Archie had sent. One random piece of gossip about a man named John André, who had whispered a plan to a young woman who Archie then charmed.

His head swam. “If every step leading here was orchestrated by God…”

She smiled and clutched her cup close. “Then He must love you very much to have planned such an intricate journey. Correct?”

A breath of a laugh escaped his lips as all his knowledge, all the memorized Scriptures stored in his mind, at last coalesced into a picture. One of a God involved in His creation. Of a Father who had steered him to this very spot in ways Ben never could have imagined, no matter how long he contemplated it.
“Quad erat demonstratum.
And so it is proven.”

Viney placed the cup on her rickety table and stood. “I feel you must hasten to Winter, sir. But before you go…” She moved a rug and then a broken shingle covering a hole, out of which she drew a small velvet bag. After untying it, she poured three pearls into her palm and held it out to him. “This is what remains of the necklace Winter gave me. Would you return them to her?”

He studied the gleaming spheres and then her pale face. “Do you not need them?”

How could a smile seem at once to be peaceful and yet no more than a ghost? “Nay. I know enough of consumption to realize this burst of energy I have felt these past few days will be my last. The provisions I just purchased will keep me until the end. It will come soon, and I am ready for it. Please.” She held her hand closer to him.

His throat tight, Ben reached out and plucked the pearls from her palm.

She seemed to relax. “Thank you. I pray they will serve as a reminder of His provision, of His plan for us all. Will you tell her I send my greetings? And assure her I have prayed for her daily, as I promised I would?”

His fingers curled around the gems. The lustrous promises. He had to squeeze shut his eyes for a moment. What was that verse about casting pearls before swine? That was what he felt like now—unworthy. All his life he had not only doubted, he had reasoned his way into rebellion against the Lord. Yet still He had guided him, had blessed him, and had, so quickly after being asked, demonstrated Himself to him. “I will tell her.”

“Thank you. And what hours I have left will be spent in prayer for the two of you.” She pulled tight the shawl around her shoulders. “Go now. Quickly.”

Her command lit an urgency in the very core of his spirit. He nodded, pocketed the pearls along with the brittle, burnt letter sure to
crumble around them, and flew out. Over Holy Ground. In search of
the promise still waiting to be grasped.

Twenty-Seven

W
inter watched Freeman disappear up the steps to the stable and heard his footfalls lead him to the far corner, where Percy lay so near death.

Her gaze swept the room. Everything was in its place. The inks, the quills, the paper, her books. The silver had been returned to its hiding spot. The gun rested on the table before her, loaded and ready.

Unease burned her stomach. No matter how much she prayed, she couldn't shake the feeling she had made a mistake. Taken a misstep. That the enemy was closing in.

She ought to return to the house, but her limbs froze when she considered distancing herself from her sanctuary right now. Something was happening. Some scale had been tipped.

God of my end, help me to know Your will for me.

More footsteps sounded above her, entering from the main doors. Her gaze flew to the narrow, steep staircase. Was that light from above slivering through? Surely Freeman had closed the trap door carefully, hadn't he? He always did.

But when Percy had screamed in such pain…

Well, there was no need to fear the worst. She clamped down on the instinct to panic, to rush to blow out her lamp. As jittery as she felt,
she might knock it over and thereby draw unwanted attention on herself—not to mention ignite all her most precious belongings.

Instead she held her breath and closed her eyes.
Father in heaven, protect me.

The footsteps came directly overhead. Paused. Shuffled. That bar of light went dark.

Winter's arm stole out of its own accord, and her fingers wrapped around the handle of the flintlock.

A creak, far too familiar—the sound of the trapdoor being raised. Knees shaking, she rose too. Her arm lifted until it extended the gun before her. She aimed at the stairs and whoever would come down them.

She recognized the boots, scuffed and worn as they were, and the shape of the legs that followed them. He descended quickly, pulling the door closed above him. “Bennet?” Her voice shook to match her hand.

He didn't seem surprised to see her down here—until his gaze landed on the gun. Hands flying upward, his eyes bulged. “Blast it, Winter, put that down! You could ki—wait. Is that one of George's?”

She tried to calm her racing heart, but in vain. Though she did lower the weapon. “Yes.”

“How in thunder did you—never mind.” Lowering his arms back to his sides, he stepped from the final stair onto the packed dirt of the floor and looked around. “I suppose I should simply accept that you find ways to procure things, be they weapons or information, that I never suspected. You have everything you could need down here, I see. I must say, when I saw that trap door open, I did not expect to discover this.”