force.'
'It would have mattered how many they would have sent, though, would it not?' Alan asked, throwing a damper on their celebrations.
'Well, if a battalion had come, the best we could have hoped for was to fall back through the woods to you by the boats, while you held out,' Governour said, since it was now moot speculation. 'Your men and Mollow with a half-dozen riflemen could have slowed them up. After that…'
'After that, we would have swum for our lives to the boats and hoped they wouldn't have murdered us out in the open water,' Alan said.
'We would have put up a damned hard fight they'd have remembered for the rest of their lives,' Governour said tautly. 'Now, how much can you accomplish tonight if we work in the harm?'
'The leeboards,' Alan said, shaking off the gruesome image of their entire force laid out defeated and dead, just like the revellers in the front yard. 'The keels have to wait 'til morning, unless we want to show torches down by the boats.'
'No. Get as much done as you can.'
'Governour,' Alan said, getting a premonitory chill once more, 'we'll be days along the eastern shore, and God knows what we'll run into. Would it be possible if you or Burgess or Knevet worked with some of my free hands and drilled them on those spare Fergusons?'
'A damned sensible idea, Alan,' Burgess said. 'Best to be prepared for any eventuality.'
'My thoughts exactly.'
Using as few torches as possible in the barns to shield the lights from prying eyes, they had worked until nearly midnight. The mahogany door panels were taken down and drilled to accept the axles of the small front wagon wheels, nailed to the naves and ready for installation in the morning at first light on the barges through existing rowports. Alan finally let his men get some rest and went back to the house to take his own. He entered the front parlor where Governour was already snoring on his pallet before the fire, sleeping rough on the carpet. Burgess was ensconced on a settee on his side. Even in repose, the Chiswick brothers were a ruthless-looking crew, Alan thought as he studied them by firelight. They were taller than he was, which gave them authority in spite of their low ranks, slim and almost angular. Even if he had not seen them in action, he would walk warily about them if he met them on the street back home. They had an air about them of habitual command, the sense of being obeyed. Perhaps it came from owning slaves and bossing them about, Alan decided, but they were impressive creatures, perhaps what that Frog Rousseau meant by natural nobility. Daunting personalities, magnificent physical specimens, and pretty enough to turn heads on the Strand or in the parks back in England, should they ever live to get there. Burgess had told him they still had relations in Surrey somewhere and with the Rebels in possession of everything they had built up in the Carolinas, they were hoping to return to England and make a new start. Such an enterprise was dear to his own heart as well; he wished them joy of it.
He sat down in a chair by the sideboard and discovered a bottle of rhenish that had been opened but barely touched. Being careful not to wake his compatriots, he poured himself a glass and sat back to ease his weary body. The house was silent as a tomb, except for the Chiswicks and their snoring. The sentry at the foot of the stairs was drowsing as well.
Don't I have an assignation waiting for me? Alan asked himself. He checked his watch and discovered that it was a few minutes past the appointed hour of midnight. No, after this afternoon, she'll hate the very sight of me. Still, she's a whore, ain't she? What's another guinea or two now?
He stripped off his coat and waistcoat, undid his neckcloth and tossed them onto the chair next to him. He lit a candle with a stick of kindling that had fallen from the low-burning fire and made his way out into the hallway with a bottle of wine and two glasses in one hand, and the candle-stand in the other. There was no sentry on the back stairs from the butler's pantry, though there was one at the back steps wrapped in a blanket against the chill of the night, and very much awake. Alan made his way up the dark stairs to the rear passage of the upper story. There was a door and a mean little narrow corridor that gave entrance to the rooms above through the back, so that night-soil and other unsavory removals could be done without staining the main hallways. He went all the way to the end and found a final doorway. He blew out the candle and opened the door furtively, inch at a time to avoid creaking hinges. It opened noiselessly, though, obviously well oiled to avoid disturbing anyone who was using the chamber.
There was a sliver of moon coming through the windows, just enough to see that he was in a large and well- furnished suite at the end of the house. Surely, it had to be Nancy's; she had said her bedchambers were at the end of the house, overlooking the front yard and porches. He was in her sitting room. Groping like a blind man, he snaked his way on past all the furniture to the far doors, which stood open. Once his eyes were used to the gloom, he could espy a tall bed and several chests and wardrobes, a dressing table, and a mirror that glinted moonlight.
With a smile, he crossed to the bed and found a small table by the headboard on which he could deposit his unlit candle-stand and his wine and glasses, though not without a tell-tale clink of glass on glass.
'Who's there?' a tremulously fearful small voice exclaimed.
''Tis Alan, Nancy love,' he whispered, removing his shoes.
'Oh God, after what happened today, ya still come to me and expect me to welcome ya?' she hissed, sitting up in bed with the sheets drawn up around her neck as a thin defense. 'Leave my chambers at once, or I'll yell the house down.'
'There'll be no more guineas if I do,' he warned her, unbuttoning his shirt. 'Your visitors this afternoon brought wine and tasty delicacies, but no gold for you.'
'Wh… what do ya take me for!' she complained in the dark.
'Sookie told me about you. So why make such a show of outrage?'
'Oh, you smug bastard!' she cried. 'If I ever gave my favors ta a man, it was not for coin, sir! What sort of vile creature are you, ta think all women are whores for your pleasure? Just cause you've bought some women in the past doesn't mean we're all for sale for ya!'
'So your lovers just
'Goddamn ya, get out before I scream!' she said louder. 'Ya shot down people I knew today, officers that'd been welcome here before, and now ya come creeping into my chambers with blood on your hands and think a guinea makes't alright? Get out, I mean it!'
To make her point, she picked something up from the lightstand and threw it at him. Whatever it was struck him on the shoulder, and he flinched away from her anger. The object clanked to the floor noisily.
'Go, before I kill ya!' she warned.
'Very well,' Alan fumed, heading for the door, bumping into the tables and chairs and making even more of a racket than she would have, trying to salvage his pride.
Once downstairs, and into another bottle of wine to replace the one she had thrown at him as a parting gesture, he had to realize that he could not exactly blame her. One or more of the men who had been shot down in ambush had most likely been in her bed once before. What really made him mad was the way she had gulled him out of those guineas.
He was also unhappy that he had gained no useful information from her in spite of being at his most charming, as much as he would have been charming with a courtesan, and he had a nagging feeling that she had gotten more from him than he hoped to learn from her.
Good thing we're leaving here tomorrow, he thought grumpily as he poured himself another glass of wine, before she found a way to get down the stairs some night and cut my nutmegs off for spite.
CHAPTER 13
He woke up feeling like the wrath of God had descended on his skull, having sat up and finished half the bottle on top of all his exertions the day before. A clock had chimed three before he had been calm enough to sleep, and he had been roused at five to head down to the boats to oversee the last construction.
While he was standing around trying to look commanding (and awake), Burgess Chiswick joined him, looking a lot fresher than Alan felt. He did, however, bring a large mug of coffee with him which Alan appreciated.
'Well, this looks promising, I suppose,' Burgess said. 'Though I know little about the construction of boats.
