He’d escaped the noose largely because of his skill at cursing in Latin, which had disconcerted the major long enough for William to identify himself, his ex-regiment, and a list of prominent army officers who would vouch for him, beginning with General Clinton （God, where was Clinton now?）。
Denys Randall was murmuring to the major, who still looked displeased but had dropped from a full boil to a disgruntled simmer. The lieutenant was watching William intently, through narrowed eyes, obviously expecting him to leap from the bench and make a run for it. The man kept unconsciously touching his cartridge box and then his holstered pistol, clearly imagining the wonderful possibility that he could shoot William dead as he ran for the door. William yawned, hugely and unexpectedly, and sat blinking, exhaustion washing through him like the tide.
Right this moment, he really didn’t care what happened next. His bloody fingers had made smears on the worn wood of the table and he stared at these in absorption, paying no attention to what was being said—until one battered ear picked up the word “intelligencer.”
He closed his eyes. No. Just … no. But he was listening again, despite himself.
The voices rose, overlay each other, interrupted. But he was paying attention now, and realized that Denys was attempting to convince the major that he, William, was working as a spy, gaining information from American militia groups as part of a scheme to … kidnap George Washington?
The major appeared as startled as William was to hear this. The voices dropped as the major turned his back toward William, leaning forward into Denys and hissing questions. Denys, damn him, didn’t turn a hair, but he had lowered his voice respectfully. Where the bloody hell was George Washington? He couldn’t possibly be within two hundred miles … could he? Bar the battle at Monmouth Courthouse, the last William had heard of Washington’s movements he was arsing about in the mountains of New Jersey. The last place his cousin Benjamin had been seen.
There were noises outside the tavern—well, there had been all the time, but they were the inchoate noises of men being herded, orders, trampling, protests. Now the sounds took on a more organized character, and he recognized the noises of departure. A raised voice of authority, dismissing troops? Men moving away in a body, but not soldiers; nothing orderly about the shuffling and muttering he heard beneath the nearer sound of Denys’s discussion with Major What-not. No telling what was happening—but it didn’t sound at all like an official hanging. He’d attended one such function three years before, when an American captain named Hale had been executed as a … spy. He hadn’t eaten any breakfast, and tasted bile as the word dropped like cold lead into his stomach.
Thank you, Denys Randall … he thought, and swallowed. He’d once thought of Denys as a friend, and while he’d been disabused of that notion three years ago by Denys’s abrupt disappearance from Quebec, leaving William snowbound and without purpose, he hadn’t quite thought the man would use him openly as a tool. But a tool for what purpose?
Denys seemed to have won his point. The major turned and gave William a narrow-eyed, assessing look then shook his head, turned, and left, followed by his reluctantly obedient lieutenant.
Denys stood quite still, listening to their footsteps recede down the stairs. Then he took a deep, visible breath, straightened his coat, and came and sat down opposite William.
“Isn’t this a tavern?” William said before Denys could speak.
“It is.” One dark brow went up.
“Then get me something to drink before you start telling me what the devil you just did to me.”
THE BEER WAS good, and William felt a qualm on behalf of Geoffrey Gardener, but there was nothing he could do for the man. He drank thirstily, ignoring the sting of alcohol on his split lip, and began to feel a little more settled in himself. Denys had been applying himself to his own beer with an equal intensity, and for the first time William had enough attention to spare to notice the deep coating of dust that streaked Denys’s wide cuffs, and the grubbiness of his linen. He’d been riding for days. It occurred to him to wonder whether perhaps Denys’s opportune appearance hadn’t been entirely an accident. But if not—why? And how?
Denys drained his mug and set it down, eyes closed and mouth half open with momentary content. Then he sighed, sat up straight, opened his eyes, and shook himself into order.
“Ezekiel Richardson,” he said. “When did you last see him?”
That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. William wiped his mouth gingerly on his sleeve and lifted one brow and his empty mug at the waiting barmaid, who took both mugs and disappeared down the stairs.