The Turncoat by Donna Thorland

Author:Donna Thorland
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Historical, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)
ISBN: 9781101615065
Publisher: NAL
Published: 2013-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Philadelphia, November 26, 1777

“Where do you go to do it?” Peggy Shippen sat in front of her dressing table, admiring her freshly coiffed hair. It was teased up and plumped with wool padding, and framed by golden ringlets that perfectly matched Peggy’s own. The style towered atop her head like an over-risen loaf.

“Do what?” Kate asked, stifling her impulse to tell Peggy what she thought of her hair. Elaborate, chandelier-scraping styles were all the rage in London, of course, and Philadelphia’s Tory daughters strove to outdo one another in their Englishness.

“It,” Peggy Shippen hissed, her coiffure wobbling dangerously. “John André says you and Bayard Caide can’t be going to the theater anymore because the players rehearse there during the day.”

Sometimes Kate forgot how young Peggy was, but in the sunlight streaming in the window, without cosmetics, it was plain that she was still a child, barely eighteen, and trapped in a prolonged adolescence by wealth and comfort. The reminder of her connection to the calculating Captain André was more poignant still.

“We don’t do it, Peggy, and even if we did I’d hardly go advertising the address for our trysts in the Gazette.”

“No one believes that,” insisted Peggy. “Everyone says Sir Bayard is debauched and that you must be as well, no matter how demure you act in public.”

Kate decided it was fruitless to argue. Better that the world thought she was already sleeping with her fiancé. No one would believe the truth: that since his initial seduction at the playhouse, he had not touched her. He treated her with an uncharacteristic delicacy, a reserve that spoke of passion under heavy rein.

Bay’s urgent desire to marry her, thankfully, had passed with the fall of Forts Mifflin and Mercer. After Donop’s failed attack in late October, Howe had concentrated all his guns on nearby Mifflin. The bombardment lasted nearly a month and reduced Mifflin to a heap of indefensible rubble. But the Rebel garrison still did not surrender. The wily Americans had infuriated Howe by abandoning the fort in the dead of night and slipping away across the river to Mercer. When Howe turned his attention there, the Rebels spiked the guns and blew up the magazine, leaving Howe nothing but a wrecked shell.

And control of the river. With the Rebel guns at Mercer and Mifflin silenced, there was nothing to stop Howe’s brother, the admiral, from clearing the chevaux-de-frise from the river and warping his frigates through. With the city firmly in British hands for the winter, no doubt Caide felt more certain of her.

Peter Tremayne had been right. Her espionage had not prevented the taking of the forts and the river—it had only delayed it. She should have prayed for Mercer to hold out. She’d sacrificed her safe, respectable future in Orchard Valley to keep the river American and drive the British out. But when the navy guns announced their presence in the river, when the Cerberus and the Roebuck fired their salute, rattling her windows and waking her from an uneasy sleep, she’d wept with relief.

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