The girl looked up with a start.'Excuse me,' said the doctor. 'I am looking for a friend.' He stepped forward and bowed. 'Allow me to introduce myself: Dr. Harland Keen. I am on a mission for Governor Clinton.'
'Oh,' said the girl. She started to get up from the loom, but caught her dress on the bench; the frame, pedals, and cloth mechanisms formed a kind of cage for the operator, making it difficult to exit quickly. Keen flew across the room, catching her in his arms. He lifted her up as if she were a princess, twirling her away from the machine and then setting her down, bowing with all the flourish he had once used on the floor of the king's palace.
Under other circumstances, Keen would have been sorely tempted to pursue his interest in her. Indeed, he had to fight severely against his nature, reminding himself that Gibbs's existence was a threat to his own life. 'I hope you are all right, my dear,' he told her, stepping back. 'I am searching for a friend of mine, a Colonel Gibbs. He is tall, well-built, with blond hair. I believe he came here searching for a suit.'
'A stranger bought clothes from my father this afternoon,' said the girl. 'He was tall and more handsome than any man I have ever seen.'
'Some women find Mr. Gibbs pleasing,' allowed Keen, suppressing a reaction to her flutter. 'Though I could not say but his nose seems over-large for his face, as well as his health. We were supposed to meet in this town, or I thought we were.'
Keen walked to a table near the side, where some fine polonaise gowns were displayed. It took little imagination to picture the girl in one.
'He said he was going to New York,' she told him.
Keen barely heard. It had been too long since he partook of beauty, and the temptation to satisfy himself on this morsel was overwhelming. Whether the girl understood the look in his eye as he turned or not, she took a step backwards. Keen advanced arms forward, his body literally shaking in anticipation.
'Another step toward my daughter and I will blow your head off.'
Keen stopped dead, then looked up with a contrite smile at Kristen's father in the doorway.
'This is an interesting way of greeting customers.'
'What business have you in my shop?' demanded the weaver, unimpressed. 'State it quickly.'
'I am looking for a friend,' said Keen. Walking stick in hand, he took a tentative step toward the man. His gun appeared to be one of the colonists' infamous Pennsylvania rifles, though at this distance, its legendary accuracy was hardly essential.
'You have no friend here,' said the weaver. 'Out with you.'
'Now, now, my good man. We are all friends in one way or another,' said Keen.
The weaver's answer was cut short by a sharp jab of the doctor's cane in his stomach. The gun fired harmlessly into the ceiling; Keen smacked the side of the man's skull and sent him to a deep but unrestful sleep against the cabinet.
'And now, my darling,' said the doctor, turning back. 'Perhaps you would like to come with me to New York? Have you seen the sights there?'
'She will not see them today,' said a sharp female voice.
Surprised, Keen turned to his right. Standing in the doorway to the back of the house was a woman holding a musket.
'I don't know who you are,' declared the girl's mother, 'but if you do not walk backward from this building this instant, you will sing with the angels in heaven.'
'As you wish, madam.'
Keen was a man of science, but he considered that there are certain times in life when Fate herself may be playing a hand, and it is best not to interfere. He could always return here at some future date, once his job was complete.
He paused at the door, and reached inside his vest for his purse.
Mrs. Daley brought the musket up and steadied her aim.
'Permit me, madam, to pay for your troubles,' he said mildly. 'And a little extra.'
He threw thirty crowns on the floor, a princely sum in this, and indeed most, households.
'I hope that you will spend a portion of it on that beautiful gown,' he told Kristen, pointing it out. 'It would look most beautiful on you.'
He did not pause to hear the reply.
Chapter Fourteen
Jake's exertions, along with the tide and current, had delivered them to a point not only across the river but far south of the shore where he and Alison had departed. If the reader were to stand on the ridge at the girdle of the island — in the same batteries that slowed the Hessian advance the previous fall — he would find the two patriots to the south, though still beyond Cadwallader's mansion in the rocky portion of the city's outer precincts.
Anyone who has only visited the seaport and close streets at the tip of the island before the war will do well here to adjust his vision from brick buildings to farmland, or more properly, swamps and rough shoreline, which is where Alison and Jake found themselves as dawn ran its fingers through their damp hair.
Alison was the first to wake, roused from slumber by some warm licks on her face. These came from a large but friendly mastiff, who stood over her with a quizzical look. When she opened her eyes, the dog took a half-step back and gave a triumphant bark, as if he had breathed life into an inanimate object.
Alison recoiled from the brown-toned dog, with its well-meaning but spittle-ridden tongue. The tragedy of the previous night returned to her in a flood of horrible memories, and tears flowed freely, sorrow and fright combining in a way the fifteen-year-old had never felt before. Kneeling against the rough sand, she buried her head in her hands as the dog looked on in confusion.
'Do not cry, young man,' said a gentle voice. 'Here now, you're all right.'
Alison — whose hair was cut short and who was still wearing the breeches, shirt, vest and coat of a boy — was helped to her feet by a woman in a spotless white dress.
'Am I in heaven?' she asked.
The woman laughed. 'I doubt Manhattan island has ever been considered that, or it wouldn't have been sold so cheaply. Were you shipwrecked?'
'Our boat sank. My father — '
Alison looked back at the rocks where Jake was lying, his arms crowded over his head. The dog was standing over him with a quizzical air, perhaps not knowing quite where to apply his tongue.
'Back, King, stand away.' The woman patted the dog's neck lightly. 'He means well, but he is such a slobberer. Come with me to the house, young man. We'll send some servants back to help your father while we get you some dry clothes. What is your name?'
Alison, well aware now that they had washed up in enemy territory, hesitated for only the slightest moment before answering 'Al.'
'Mine is Lady Patricia. Come along.' The woman took her by the hand. 'King, stay here until I send one of the soldiers down.'
At the sharp tone, the dog's ears became erect. He gave a quick bark and bared his teeth, then began strutting back to Jake. No member of the Black Watch mounted a prouder patrol.
If the woman had appeared to be an angel when Alison opened her eyes, the building she led her to could have been Heaven's own mansion. The gabled roof gleamed bright red with the light from the rising sun behind it, and the brick front was glazed with a glowing warmth that welcomed her as she stepped on the oyster-covered path leading to the door.
Lady Patricia led her gently by the hand, opened the mansion’s door and then called to a servant to assist. A young black man only a few years older than Alison appeared; he was dressed in a silk suit finer than any clothes her father or any of their customers had ever owned. He bowed as he received his instructions. Addressing Alison
