The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (48 page)

When he pulled his lips from hers, Clara had not yet had her fill, and she reached for him again. But he didn’t allow her to kiss him. He raised a finger between their lips, asking: “What took you so long, Clara?”

Her mind was fuzzy, and she blinked, trying to answer the question. “I’m asking myself the same thing, Cal.”

He took her fingers and threaded them through his own. “I had pretty much given up on you, Clara.”

She didn’t respond, but instead put her head on his shoulder.

Still looking out at the river, he said, “I’m glad that my aunt told you about Sarah Williamson.”

Clara lifted her head, looking at him. “Cal, that’s not why you wrote to Mrs. Quigley with your news, is it?”

A smirk tugged on his lips. “I must confess, I
was
sort of hoping that my aunt would share the news that I’d met a girl. That it might make you a little jealous. Perhaps get you to wake up, at last.”

Clara smiled, kissing him on the cheek. “I should be mad at you for toying with me that way.”

“I had grown impatient, Clara Bell.”

She smiled. She deserved that. Leaning toward his ear, she whispered, “Thank you for waiting for me, Cal.”

“You were worth it, Clara Bell.” He kissed her again, his hand holding her cheek as he did so.

They sat beside each other for a long time, silently watching the current of the river as it meandered past. She felt warm from the sun and her love for Cal, so freshly declared. But her joy gave way to a darker, more practical concern. How would they ever be together? With him going back to his camp, and her returning to the Arnolds, a future with Cal seemed far from certain.

Caleb’s thoughts seemed to have turned down a similar path. “We’re getting close to the end of this war.” Caleb’s posture stiffened. “It won’t be long now. And when it’s over, I want to marry you.”

Her heart leapt with joy. “Nothing would make me happier, Cal.” She leaned forward to kiss him, but he quickly pulled his head back.

“But your letters have me very concerned.”

Grinding her teeth, she thought,
Thank you, Miss Peggy, for ruining my engagement.
But it was so much bigger than that. The future with Cal, the future of the entire nation, was in peril—she understood the difficulties they faced better than anyone.

“Clara, it sounds an awful lot like treason, what you’re describing to me.”

She had been so happy a moment ago, so hopeful for the idea of a life with him. And now her stomach was twisted in knots. “It is,” she said.

“What is the latest?”

“They are communicating with André.”

“I gathered that from your messages. And?”

“I don’t know what to do, Cal. I see no way of stopping it.”

Caleb sat in thoughtful silence while Clara told him of all that she knew—of the correspondence the Arnolds had undertaken with Major André, of their efforts to get the assignment at West Point, of their plans to turn over the fort to André and Clinton.

“Just as Washington is planning to strike New York City too.” Caleb grinded his teeth. “That snake. Sorry, Clara, I know he is still your employer.”

“Don’t be. I’ve thought far worse about her over the years,” she said.

“If there was any way to prove that he was planning this, I’d shoot him myself,” Caleb fumed.

“But that’s the problem, Cal. There’s no way to prove Arnold’s plot. He burns all the letters once he’s read them. And they never use one another’s names. They could always just point to the names and say that clearly the letter wasn’t intended for Arnold, but that he intercepted it to have it investigated.”

“Yes.” Caleb thought this through, his face pensive.

“I’ve been agonizing over this,” Clara said.

“Have they met—Arnold and André?” Caleb asked.

“Not yet. But André did request a meeting with Arnold.”

Caleb listened. “That’s interesting. That would mean he’d have to come north to meet with Arnold. That could be our opportunity.”

“You think so?” Clara considered it.

“Possibly. But there would have to be proof on André’s person that linked him to Arnold. Or a signed letter. Otherwise he could just say he was traveling on official business on behalf of General Clinton. Crossing enemy lines on official orders is not in and of itself a war crime.”

Clara thought this over.

“If André comes north to meet Arnold, tell me.” Caleb looked at her intensely. “All right?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “All right.”

“Clara, we must stop it. It’s our future together.” He paused, looking out over the river, at the tiny gray speck that stood on the opposite hill, West Point. Lifting his hands, as if to hold all of this land in his arms, Caleb said: “The future of all of this.”

VIII.

It is backbreaking work—rowing so hard, so long. His arms burn with the exertion, his brow grows moist with sweat.

But the other option is to have his neck broken at the gallows. To die a traitor. He would not have that. Not after all that he has sacrificed for this country, not after being insulted, cheated, and lied to. No, if anything,
he
is the victim of untold treachery.

Her face haunts him as he rows. The panic, the confusion. How could he have put her in such a dangerous position? How could he have left her to fend for herself among that pack of wolves? It was too much to think about.

Perhaps he should go back. Turn the boat around. Rescue her.

But they will have arrived by now. They are most likely stabling their horses at his barn this very moment. Do they know yet? he wonders.

He keeps his eyes fixed firmly down the river, where he hopes to spot the full sails of the
Vulture
at any time. They will welcome him aboard as a hero. The hero’s treatment he has so long deserved, so long been denied.

He feels no remorse for John André; the man chose his own fate. Nor does the fault lie with him that the fool got himself caught. The man always seemed to walk with excessive swagger. And now he may hang. But that matters not. What he cares about is reaching the ship. That, and his wife. He grows sad as he thinks of her as he’d seen her this morning. Sleeping beside him, her blond curls giving her the cherubic appearance he’d always loved.

“Oh,” he cries out, with nothing but the river to hear his doleful lamentation. Wouldn’t it be better to die beside her than to live without her? Would she ever be reunited with him in this life?

CHAPTER EIGHT

“The Biggest Fish of Them All”

August 1780

West Point, New York

I
SAW YOU
riding away with that stableboy. The one that always smelled like horse filth.” Peggy was in bed, watching Clara build her evening fire. Clara wanted to take one of the logs she was stacking and hurl it toward the bed. Instead, she bit her tongue and continued to unload the logs over the hearth. Nothing would quench the happy glow inside her, the one that burned ever since Cal’s kiss had touched her lips.

“Oh my goodness. You . . . you are
attracted
to him?” Peggy pulled the feather quilt around her shoulders and Clara swore she overheard a titter of mocking laughter.

Clara’s silence seemed only to propel Peggy to further taunts. “I always just figured he was trying to seduce you and that you, pure little Clara Bell, didn’t understand what was going on. Like when Robert Balmor kissed you so brazenly and you allowed it.”

Clara’s face burned at the mention of that name—in shame, in embarrassment, in anger. How dare Miss Peggy compare the two?

“Oh, Clara, best not to get yourself attached.” Peggy spoke with maternal care, a tone that Clara knew to be entirely conjured. “He’s on the wrong side, which means he shall hang before this war is over. And besides, he’s probably in bed with a different tavern wench every night.”

Arnold opened the door just then, limping in without knocking. “Peggy.” He moved toward the bed in several brisk strides. “André didn’t await a reply. He’s written again.”

“Oh?” Peggy slid out from under the bedsheet, sitting upright. Clara’s interest too was roused.

“He wants to meet.” Arnold’s face bore the signs of strain.

“To meet?” Peggy rose from the bed, walking to the mirror and studying her appearance as if her husband had told her eighteen-year-old self that John André stood outside the bedroom door. She turned from front to back, examining her curvy figure beneath the thin linen shift she wore. Clara knew Peggy well enough to know intuitively what her mistress was thinking: she was wondering if André would find her attractive after all this time.

“Well, Benny, invite him to meet.”

Arnold was studying the letter and didn’t seem to notice his wife’s odd behavior. “We can’t have him here, Peg.” Arnold shook his head. “It’s far too deep behind colonial lines. Someone will see him. It’s not safe.”

Peggy crossed her arms and thought about this.

Arnold continued. “I need to meet him somewhere in No Man’s Land, right on the border of the two lines.”

“Where is that?” Peggy asked.

“Tarrytown on this side of the river. Haverstraw on the other side.”

Peggy answered, “How about that fellow we had luncheon with a few months ago? That Joshua Smith fellow? He fawned all
over you, and he seemed thick-skulled enough to fall for the idea of hosting a meeting for you.”

“Good idea,” Arnold answered.

“When will it happen?”

“André has requested a meeting on the eleventh of September. I shall write to accept, and once I get an agreement from Smith, I’ll write André back with directions. It’ll have to be the middle of the night, so that André can slip over the line undetected. He’ll most likely come by boat.”

“Let’s hope Smith agrees.” Peggy faced her husband. “The man is clearly an admirer of yours, but will he ask too many questions?”

Arnold mulled this over. “The man is not particularly smart, and wants nothing more than to ingratiate himself with me. But perhaps not to the extent that he’d allow me to discuss treason with a British officer in front of his nose . . .”

“You shall have to lie,” Peggy said. “Smith can’t know that André is a British officer. Not while we still question where Smith’s loyalty rests.”

“André shall have to come in plain clothes,” Arnold agreed.

Clara made a note in her mind of all the details of this treasonous meeting, determined to relay this information to Cal.

“That will work.” Peggy nodded, hopping back into bed. “When shall we go?”

“ ‘We’?” Arnold looked at his wife.

“I shall go with you, of course,” Peggy answered, summoning him toward the bed, “seeing as I am the liaison.”

“My dear lady.” Arnold’s voice betrayed incredulity. “I see no good reason why you should hazard your comfort, and more importantly, your safety, to attend this meeting. It is between John André and myself.”

Clara braced herself for what was surely coming. When Peggy spoke, her tone was biting.

“And was it between you and André when I wrote the first letter initiating contact? And how about as you’ve negotiated the terms? And shall it be between you and André alone when the fate of our family, our child, is decided by this plot?” Peggy took her face in her hands and erupted in sobs, her eyes peeking through the spaces in between her fingers to ensure that her husband watched. “Benedict Arnold, you have hurt your dear wife deeply. Oh, Clara.” Peggy summoned her maid away from the hearth. “Clara, run and fetch me a warm cloth, my head ails me so.”

When Clara returned to the room, Arnold was perched beside his wife on the bed, his efforts at assuaging her grief proving futile.

“You would cut me out of these negotiations as if I were nothing more than a servant.” Peggy sobbed, taking the cloth from Clara and dabbing her forehead. “Be gone from my sight, Benedict Arnold.”

This distressed Arnold, who stayed beside his wife’s bed. “My dear, of course you shall not be cut out—I shall return with a report, which I will share in full. I simply will not risk your safety on this excursion.”

Peggy looked at her husband, her weepy eyes sharpening in focus. “But you overlook a key point, Benny.” Clara sensed that Peggy was recalibrating her strategy, having failed at her first attempt.

“Smith shall be hosting this meeting, and he shall expect to be a participant. If you and Johnny, I mean, André, wish to speak in private without your host, Smith might take offense. Or worse, grow suspicious.”

Arnold listened as his wife described this scenario, stroking the
whiskers on his chin in thought. “If only there were a way to divert his attention for a few hours . . .” Peggy floated the words, without completing the suggestion. Arnold retreated into contemplative silence.

“We need to distract Smith, do we not?” Peggy watched as her husband paced the bedroom.

“Fine.” Arnold nodded once, his jaw clenched. “You will come, to distract Smith.”

Peggy’s face brightened. “Indeed,” she sighed, retreating into her own imagination to conjure up the scene. “I’ll wear my finest gown and I will entertain Smith all night while you and Johnny discuss our plans in the other room.”