William laughed, and tucking the knife into his belt, patted it and took up the reins.
“Serve you right, gonze. Adieu!”
Cinnamon shook his head.
“Au revoir,” he corrected soberly. “Et bon voyage!”
102
The Winds of Winter
BAR A FEW SHOWERS and one day of solid rain, the weather held and the roads were not bad. As for armies, though …
His job was to retrieve Dottie and bring her home. No one had mentioned her husband, who was presumably still an escaped prisoner of war. Granted, Denzell Hunter might be with Dottie in Virginia, but if he weren’t … He knew his cousin well; he knew Denzell Hunter well, too, and thought that once Dottie was safe, Hunter would likely have returned to the Continental army, as a matter of personal belief as well as military duty. Uncle Hal had shown him the official dispatches and told him what General Prévost supposed to be true, regarding both British and American troop dispositions. Winter was coming, and all hostilities had essentially ceased up north. Sir Henry Clinton had been lurking in New York since Monmouth, and George Washington—according to Hal’s dispatches, which his uncle had thought likely accurate—was still keeping the main body of his men in winter quarters in New Jersey.
One of Washington’s generals, though—Lincoln, the man who’d mounted the unsuccessful siege of Savannah—had gone north with his troops and was presently holding the city of Charles Town, and Clinton wanted it.
“So according to the latest, Sir Henry was intending to send some fourteen thousand troops down the coast to take the place, once D’Estaing’s frogs quit New York, but he was delayed by needing to go and protect Newport, which is where the frogs went next.” Uncle Hal had riffled through the small stack of dispatches, peering through his half spectacles. “And then the frogs bloody turn up here! You did say you thought you’d seen D’Estaing himself?”
“With my own eyes,” William assured his uncle, who snorted briefly.
“And we know that Lincoln left here after the siege failed and went up to hold Charles Town, which puts something of a stumbling block in Clinton’s path,” Lord John had put in.
“Being that winter is coming, Sir Henry’s intentions may have been further delayed by the weather—and the minor problem of housing his fourteen thousand troops, in case Benjamin Lincoln doesn’t immediately oblige by surrendering Charles Town. That being so, I’ve no idea what you might find if you go through Charles Town—or anywhere near it—but …”
“But it would be a lot faster to go through Charles Town than round it,” William finished, smiling. “Don’t worry, Uncle Hal. I’ll get to Virginia as quickly as I possibly can.”
Uncle Hal’s face, shadowed with tiredness and worry, relaxed into one of those rare, charming smiles that made you feel as though everything would be fine, because surely the world could not resist him.
“I know you will, Willie,” he said, with affection. “Thank you.”
William had therefore set out on his mission with a warm heart, stout boots, a good horse, and a purse full of gold, Uncle Hal meaning to ensure that he would lack for nothing in transporting Dorothea back to her father’s arms. Uncle Hal hadn’t happened to mention any role for Denzell Hunter in these transactions, but Lord John eventually had.
“He’s a Quaker, of course,” he told William, privately, “but he’s also a surgeon in the Continental army. And an escaped prisoner of war—he broke his parole, he says. He may be with Washington now, which means he’s likely in New Jersey. If he is, bloody leave him there and bring Dottie back with you at once, no matter what she says—or does—to you.”
“She’s a Quaker now, isn’t she?” William asked. “She won’t do anything violent.”
Lord John gave him a look.
“Somehow I doubt that religious conviction will be sufficient to overcome Dorothea’s familial tendencies toward high-handedness. Remember who her bloody father is.”
“Mm,” William said noncommittally. He was in fact recalling that the last time he had told a young Quaker woman—Denzell Hunter’s bloody sister, no less!—that she wouldn’t strike him, she had slapped his face. She’d also called him a rooster, which he rather resented.
William hadn’t given Denzell much thought during the discussion of Dottie’s rescue, but if he had, he would have come to the same conclusion as had Papa and Uncle Hal. He would, he thought, send word to Denzell as to Dottie’s whereabouts and well-being, at least.