St. John’s curiosity was piqued. “Aye? What’s he done to you, McCarney?”
McCarney eyed him balefully. “Not that ’tis any o’ yer concern, mind ye, but the jackal kilt my brother—ain’t aboot to forget a thing like that!”
St. John smiled, satisfied. “How touching... brotherly devotion... but tell me, how do I know you’re not making this up? I can’t say I trust you.”
“I don’t give a brass farthing if you don’t,” McCarney said, his lip curling. “I’ll get ’im on me own someday—tried once already, don’t ye doubt it.” He snorted and spat upon the ground at St. John’s feet.
“You’ll have to stand in line, I’m afraid,” St. John said, producing a silver piece.
McCarney shook his head. “That’s not enough,” he announced, eyeing the coin.
“But it’ll do,” St. John told him coolly. “’Tis a good thing for the crown there are still men like you about, McCarney, unfettered as you are by noble sentiments.” He flung the coin into the air and caught it, balancing the silver piece upon the tip of his thumb as he gauged McCarney’s expression. “Tenish, you say?”
“Aye,” McCarney answered, eyeing the coin greedily.
St. John laughed, flipped him the silver piece, then turned and walked away.
Jessie wasgrateful for Ben’s company, for the alley seemed strange. The lanterns, which were usually brightly lit at this hour, had for some odd reason all been gutted already. Only the full, luminous moon lit their path, and even that light was minimal, for the buildings along the narrow lane cast shadows that were untouched by the moon’s glow. She recalled the tales Aunt Claire had related to her last eve, and a shiver coursed down her spine, making her shudder.
Sensing her unease, and the cause for it, Ben thought to console her. “Mother worries for naught.”
“I don’t believe that, at all,” Jessie countered. “If what she says is true, we have much to fear with those turncoats wreaking havoc about. I wonder why the lights have been gutted,” she added uneasily.
Ben’s hold tightened upon her hand. “They might be dissenters, Jessie, but turncoats, nay.”
Jessie twisted her fingers out of his painful grip, flexing them. She rubbed her hand, peering up at him. “Dissenters? Irather doubt I would put it quite so mildly,” she told him. “Your mother told me they threatened to hang British officials! ’Tis treachery, plain and simple!”
“My mother embellishes. They wouldn’t have hung the man. They simply intended to make a point—that and nothing more.”
“By building gallows and hanging effigies of stamp collectors upon them? That, Ben Stone, is a threat if ever I have heard one. At any rate, why are you defending them?” She peered warily up at her fair-haired cousin. His golden locks reflected the moonlight and seemed to glow. In contrast, his sun-darkened face was almost invisible to her, so deeply was it cast in shadow. “You’re not in league with them, are you?”
“Me?” He chuckled. “Dear coz, do I look like a turncoat to you?”
She scrutinized him a long moment as they walked. In the darkness she couldn’t quite make out the color of his coat, but she knew it to be a midnight blue; only his crisp white stock stood out, reflecting the moonlight.
He and Christian had so much in common, she considered suddenly, for they both seemed to flaunt fashion. Nor was that all they had in common. Smiling wanly into the shadows, she recalled that Christian, too, had teased her as easily as Ben did now, and the memory brought a sting to her eyes.
“I suppose not,” she yielded at last, “though if Gadsden and Pinkney are in league with those anarchists, who is to say what a turncoat looks like? Certainly not I.”
For a long moment there was only silence between them; only the hollow sound of their echoing footsteps infiltrated it.
“True, coz,” Ben agreed after a moment, snatching up her hand once more. “Though I wonder how it is you know so much.”
“Your mother, of course,” Jessie replied, laughing. “She seems privy to every last morsel of gossip in this province.You should have heard what she learned today.” With a trace of laughter still evident in her voice, she disclosed in a mock whisper, “It seems the notorious Hawk is sailing Carolina waters. Imagine that! Do you know, Ben, that I have heard him referred to as the Prince of Smugglers? I can scarce imagine anyone wearing such an ignoble title so proudly!”
Ben’s hand tightened upon hers. “Nonsense. Hawk has no business here—Charlestown is not like Boston, where smugglers are made welcome and praised for their fearlessness. I wonder where my mother would have heard such a thing.”
Having arrived at their destination, Ben led her without delay onto the Sinclair veranda and halted there. The front door was open to the night. The sounds of festivity, laughter and music, drifted to them. Two men in Sinclair livery stood, each on opposite sides of the door, their expressions cast as though in stone.
Jessie was momentarily taken aback by the agitation in Ben’s tone. She studied the rigid planes of his face, wondering why he seemed so tense tonight. “Really, Ben... I’ve no idea where she might have heard—enough of that; come, let’s go in!” She turned, tugging at his hand, and started to enter the house, but Ben drew her back.
“The night is much too lovely to go inside as yet. Keep my company an instant longer.”
She stared at him through the shadows, not liking what she heard. “You aren’t coming in?”
“Nay, I”—he sighed, looked away, then back— “I can’t.”
“Oh, Ben! Kathryn will be so disappointed! How could you break her heart so!”
