veracity of your statements,' Governour said. 'You will not mind if my men search the house? Good. Corporal Knevet? Search the house, carefully, mind. Don't break anything.'
'Raght, Mister Governour,' the dour corporal drawled, fetching a pair of troopers to help him.
'Now look here!' the woman began, but she was carefully shouldered out of the way as the men went up the stairs, and she had no choice but to descend to the foyer level and fume.
Governour went to a handsomely carved wine cabinet and opened it. He lifted out a decanter of port and sniffed at it, then poured himself a glass. 'Alan?'
'Don't mind if I do, sir.' Alan grinned.
'Don't stand on ceremony. It's Governour. Ma'am, do you have spirits in the house or sheds besides this cabinet?'
'Go to the devil!' Mistress Hayley shot back, her back up once more. 'Do you think you can take whatever you want from us?'
'Yes, ma'am, I do,' Governour replied sternly. 'You are admittedly a Rebel household, wife of a man-in-arms against his rightful King. We shall not, however, loot you. My men are hungry and we need certain items to stay in the field. Other than our immediate needs, your property will be safe. But I must know about the spirits.'
'I'll not give you or your men the pleasure!' she hissed, eager to dash the glass from Governour's hand if she could.
'It is a question of your safety, ma'am, I assure you.'
'I shall say no more. Excuse me,' she said regally, turning to go.
'If my troops or Mister Lewrie's seamen find drink, ma'am, I cannot guarantee what sort of discipline or courtesy you may expect,' Governour warned. 'Better I know where it is so it may be guarded by trusted men than should they get cup-shot and forget all decency.'
That stopped her in her tracks, and she whirled about, lifting the bottom of her skirts so that Alan could glimpse some rather fine ankles as well. She was pretty enough for an older woman, late thirties at best, with piles of dark hair and snapping brown eyes. A bit of a dumpling, but that had never stopped him before.
'Very well,' she snapped. 'There is the cabinet. There is a butler's pantry by the kitchen and there is rum and brandy kegs in the cellar we dole out to the field hands. Nothing is kept outside the house lest the slaves get to it and run wild.'
'Your slaves seem rather thin on the ground,' Governour observed. 'Your crop will be ruined if you don't get it in.'
'I sent the men off to Gloucester for labor at the request of a militia officer. I hope to have 'em back soon when your army is beat.'
'Then that may be awhile yet, ma'am.' Governour smiled as though Cornwallis was winning.
Corporal Knevet came back down the stairs, escorting another woman, this one a little younger and prettier than Mrs. Hayley, along with a frightened colored maid and a boy of about fifteen, dressed in a fine suit of dittoes— snuff-colored coat, waistcoat, and breeches. If his mother had been termagant, then he was a spitfire from hell, unsure whether to yell, cower against his mother's skirts, or try to kill someone all at the same time.
'Damn ya,' he hissed. 'Damn ya all ta hell! We got ya beat, and you're all gonna die. When the soldiers come, I wanna watch ya die!'
'Then I hope you do not mind waiting a few days for the sight,' Governour said, raising his glass in toast to the boy's spirit.
'House is clean,' Knevet informed them. 'Huntin' guns is all in the parlor, an' I took all the pistols and such I could find.'
'Check the cellars,' Governour said. 'You'll find some kegs of rum and brandy, most like the cheapest swill ever turned a black's toes up. Issue at the normal rate with supper, but post a reliable man to guard it, else. No one to enter or leave the house but us.'
Mrs. Hayley crossed to her son to shush him after his outburst, but he was having little of it. 'Hush up, Rodney, or they'll kill us all this very instant!' she admonished.
'Dirty oppressor Tories, and press-gangers! Momma, what call they got ta trample on us? They're finished an' they know it!'
'Ma'am, your child is getting tiresome. Perhaps you might want to tuck him in for his nap?' Governour frowned.
'Come, Rodney,' the sister said. 'Sarah, I'll take him.'
'I'll not!' Rodney spat.
'You will,' his mother fumed.
'Governour,' Alan muttered close. 'I have some guineas on me. Perhaps we slipped them some chink, they wouldn't make such a fuss.'
'You do? Sounds like it might work. Why don't you try?'
'Mrs. Hayley, we are not looters,' Alan began. 'There is no need for anyone to be put out by our brief stay, and I am empowered by my Sovereign to make recompense for anything we are forced to requisition.'
'What good are promissory notes?' she complained.
'We have guineas, ma'am,' Alan replied, digging the purse from his coat. He had at least one hundred guineas in it, and they gave off a pleasant jingle as he hefted them.
'Don't do it, mother,' the boy named Rodney said.
'Go to your room, Rodney,' she said to him. Prosperous as they all looked, there had been a shortage of specie in the Colonies since '76, and isolated as they were from the major smuggling cities or garrisons, they would be living on barter and the produce of the farm, with no outlet for the tobacco they had grown. She could at least be mollified by gold.
'I think it is an equitable offer,' the sister said, and Alan saw that she was indeed very pretty, perhaps five or more years younger than her sister
'They killed my papa!' the boy cried. 'They killed your Robert, and you'd take their filthy money?'
'Rodney, go to your room, now!' Mrs. Hayley sharply said, and the boy relented, sulking back up the stairs. 'I will consider your offer, sir. I may not accept, but I will at least consider it. Come, Nancy. Sir, we require our body servants to cook and do for us while you're here.'
'If they remain in the house and the immediate grounds, there shall be no problem, ma'am,' Governour told her quite cordially. 'I must keep your overseer separate, of course, if his presence is not needed.'
Mrs. Hayley and her sister swept out of the room and up the stairs to their rooms. But the sister named Nancy did look back and give Alan a glance, lowering her lashes before turning to complete her ascent.
'Damme, what a pack of cats!' Alan chuckled once they were gone.
'Have some more port,' Governour offered. 'Damned interesting.'
'What is?' Alan said, flinging himself down on a settee to take his ease. Governour poured him a healthy bumper.
'Here we have a framed portrait of a rather simple-looking man named Elihu Hayley, trimmed in black.' Governour was observing a painting on the wall of the front parlor, hanging in a prominent position. 'And by the brass plaque we learn that he died in 1778, so she has been a widow for some time. The sister practically slavered when you mentioned gold and she got most missish over us. That long, flirtatious look from the top of the stairs. You did not notice?'
'Yes, I did,' Alan said a little smugly.
'My black mammy once said that if times got hard, a rat'd eat red onions. There's not enough slave women or children to fill a quarter of those cabins, so the slaves did not go off suddenly, but were most likely sold a few at a time to raise money to keep all this style going,' Chiswick said. 'There's room in the stables for twenty horses, and that crop of tobacco is nothing like what this place could grow. Hardly any of it harvested to dry and the rest rotting. Not even been wormed or suckered.'
'Whatever that means, Governour,' Alan drawled lazily.
'Trust me. The drying barns are empty, and the storehouses do not have previous crops kegged up for shipment. I think your offer of gold mollified them into more positive sweetness than we could expect.'
'Don't tell me we've stumbled into a knocking shop,' Alan said.
'Hopefully, we won't be here long enough to know. Now, what may we do to guarantee our security here? Have any ideas, Alan?'
