Table of Contents

Cover Page

Praise

Excerpt

Title Page

About The Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Further praise for the author—

Sparbawk’s Angel

“Ms. Jarrett successfully mixes genres to bring forth an unusual, delightful, and precious reading experience. 5s.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“This reviewer can’t wait to see where Ms. Jarrett takes us next!5s.”

—Booklovers

“Miranda Jarrett performs magic in this very special romance. 4½.”

—Romantic Times

“…lighthearted and utterly charming romance…”

—The Paperback Forum

“…another delightful Sparhawk book…”

—Rendezvous

1996 RITA finalist Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner,

Sparhawk’s Lady

“…a hero to die for and a heroine who is his perfect match. Another keeper.”

—award-winning author Theresa Michaels

“…a splendid story, superbly written. 5*.”

—Affaire de Coeur

One kiss, she told herself.

One kiss to let herself pretend she was seventeen again. She swayed against Anthony as she opened both her lips and her soul to him.

“Catie.”

Slowly she opened her eyes, bewildered and bereft. What would make him stop now?

“Catie, look at me,” he said. “I do not know how it can be possible, and yet it must be so.”

He searched her face, and the first wisp of fear began to curl in Catie’s stomach. “Years ago, the night before I sailed for London, there was a girl I met in a tavern near the water.”

“You are mistaken, sir.” Catie jerked free, her heart pounding.

Relentlessly he followed. “A little serving girl afraid of her own shadow and still unaware of what her pretty face could do to a man.”

“No,” said Catie, her eyes wild as she backed away from him. “No.”

“Yes, Catie,” he said softly. “You are that lass.”

The Secrets Of Catie Hazard
Miranda Jarrett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MIRANDA JARRETT

was an award-winning designer and art director before turning to writing full-time, and considers herself sublimely fortunate to have a career that combines history and happy endings, even if it’s one that’s also made her family regular patrons of the local pizzeria. A descendant of early settlers in New England, she feels a special kinship with her popular fictional family, the Sparhawks of Rhode Island.

Miranda and her husband—a musician and songwriter—live near Philadelphia with their two young children and two old cats. During what passes for spare time she paints watercolor landscapes, bakes French chocolate cakes and whips up the occasional lastminute Halloween costume.

Miranda admits herself that it’s hard to keep track of all the Sparhawk family members, and she has prepared a family tree to help, including which characters appear in each book. She loves to hear from readers, and if you write to her and enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope, she’ll send you a copy of the family tree along with her reply. Her address: P.O. Box 1102, Paoli, PA 19301-1145.

For Angela, Deborah, Margaret and Karen,

the cream of the crop of the sixth floor,

and most especially for Tracy,

who never believed that Yankee love stories

were an oxymoron.

With much respect and fondest wishes

Au revoir, guys.

Chapter One

Newport

Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

June 1767

All evening long the gold-haired gentleman had been watching her, watching her as surely as a hawk watches a rabbit, and there wasn’t a thing, not a blessed thing, that Catie could do to stop him.

No matter that he laughed at the ribald jests his two friends were telling, or raised his tankard in their noisy toasts, or roared his approval of the blind fiddler’s tunes along with the others crowded into the Crossed Keys tonight. Through it all, Catie felt the man’s green-eyed gaze always on her as she moved among the tables, trailing her, following her, never leaving her for an instant.

And, with all her heart, Catie willed him to stop. Couldn’t he tell she wasn’t like other serving maids? Her kerchief was tied modestly high across her bodice, her hair drawn back tightly beneath her cap. She didn’t whisper her name to the sailors at her tables, and she didn’t make plans to go out walking along the wharf with them in the moonlight. She didn’t squander her wages on strong drink and fripperies like the others, but instead sent as much as she could spare back home to her mother on the farm. She was a good lass, always had been. No one could say otherwise, or accuse her of being bold or slatternly.

Until now.

She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate instead on not dropping the four empty tankards clutched in her hands. Yet still she could not quite look away from the table nearest the fire. In all her seventeen years, she’d never seen a gentleman like this one, with his gleaming blond hair and his even white teeth and the fine linen ruffles at his cuffs, falling just so over his wrists. Not that he was a dandy or a fop. His face was tanned too dark for that, his shoulders were too broad and the hands below those ruffled cuffs too large and strong.

“You can just put your eyes back into your foolish head, Catie Willman,” snapped Rebeckah as she shoved Catie aside at the bar, pushing her tray of empty tankards forward to be filled by the keep first. “Them handsome gentlemen ain’t for the likes o’ you.”

After a year of serving the tables beside Rebeckah, Catie knew better than to try to push her way in front of the older woman, just as she knew she’d waited a moment too long to defend herself.

“A cat may look at a king, Rebeckah. There’s no sin in that.” But even to Catie’s own ears, the retort sounded wistful, not defiant, the way she’d intended, and the nervous little shrug of her narrow shoulders didn’t help, either.

And Rebeckah wasn’t a merciful woman. She squinted at Catie scornfully and laughed, showing the gaps between her tobacco-stained teeth.

“Kings, y’say? Fat lot you know of it, Miss Priss!” she taunted. “Right royal rogues is closer to the truth, come here tonight to take their sport among the common folk, a pox on the three o’ them. Handsome as sin and twice as wicked, and all the gold in their pockets won’t make them Sparhawks better than they are.”

“Sparhawks?” echoed Catie faintly. Even on the backwater farm where she’d been born, they’d heard of the Sparhawk family. The Sparhawks were Newport gentry, shipowners and captains, who lived with their fine, beautiful ladies in grand houses at the other end of town. No wonder she’d never seen the gold-haired man here before. She couldn’t help stealing another glance his way.

But this time he caught her. He cocked his head back a fraction, just a fraction, and smiled, slow and lazy enough to make Catie’s cheeks flame and her mouth fall open in a silent O of amazement.

Rebeckah shoved her again, this time hard enough that Catie nearly dropped her tankards. “I told you to quit your gawking, you silly little cow!”

Catie yelped, her side smarting where the other woman’s elbow had jabbed her. “And I tell you he was the one to stare at me first!”

“You?” Rebeckah’s brows shot up with cruel disbelief. “One of them Sparhawks fancyin’ a rabbity little chit like you? The only man ever looks your way, Miss Priss, is old Ben himself!”

Automatically Catie’s gaze darted to the front hall, where the tavern’s owner sat perched on his tall stool to greet the customers. Master Hazard was old, nearly twice her own age, with wispy auburn hair that trailed beneath his curled snuff wig and hands that always seemed damp when he brushed against her.

“Oh, aye, that’s your admirer,” continued Rebeckah relentlessly, leaning closer so Catie wouldn’t miss a word. “An’ even old Ben only smiles your way on account o’ you being so eager to work yourself to the very bone.”

“That’s not true, none of it!” cried Catie. “And I swear to you, Mr. Sparhawk has been watching me, all night, too!”

But still Rebeckah’s barbs struck painfully close to the mark. Why should she believe what Catie said about the fair-haired gentleman, when Catie could scarcely believe it herself?

Rebeckah’s eyes were glittering with malicious triumph. “Then prove it. Go to him now an’ ask if he wants his glass refilled. If he’s been oglin’ you, he’ll welcome the chance to see you close. Go on, show me.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Catie hastily. “Besides, that’s your table, not mine, and I wouldn’t—”

“Go on, Miss Priss,” goaded Rebeckah. “Unless you’re afraid you’ll cross old Ben. Unless you’re scared. Unless you’re lying.”

Her heart pounding, Catie thumped the empty tankards onto the counter and spun about, her striped petticoat swirling around her ankles. If she hesitated for even a moment, she’d lose her nerve, and she couldn’t afford to do that. Swiftly she threaded her way among the tables and chairs, smoothing her apron with quick, anxious fingers as she went, heading directly to the table where the green-eyed gentleman waited.

He watched her come, his expression remaining almost languidly charming, while her own cheeks grew hotter still. She stopped before him with awkward abruptness, and barely remembered to bob the hint of a curtsy. Her heart was racing, and her mouth was so dry she prayed she’d be able to speak at all.

And at the last moment, to her horror, she realized she couldn’t. She swallowed convulsively, opened her mouth, and nothing, absolutely nothing, came out.

“Good day to you, lass,” he said, saving her from herself without a hint of mockery. “Or good evening, considering the hour.”

“Whichever Your Lordship wishes,” she said, finally finding a reedy, breathless voice to pass as her own. “That is, in truth it’s night, but if it pleases you to call it day, then so it is.”

She hadn’t thought it possible to blush any deeper, but after that half-witted speech she found she most certainly could, sinking deeper into mortified misery as her whole face burned, clear to the tops of her breasts.

But still he didn’t tease or ridicule her. Instead he merely nodded, the lazy smile that curved his lips meant for her alone. “What an agreeable creature you are,” he marveled softly, “willing to turn night into day and back again merely because I wish it”

“Aye, Your Lordship.” She wasn’t sure what else was proper. This close to the firelight, his eyes were greener than she’d realized from across the room, shadowed beneath the sweep of his lashes—green cat’s eyes, and she the little mouse with the racing heart, caught in their spell.

“Might I bring Your Lordship more rum?” she asked at last, struggling to return the conversation to the more usual topics. Surely she’d convinced Rebeckah by now. The sooner she left this table, the better. “Or is it something finer Your Lordship’s drinking this night?”

“‘Your Lordship?’” repeated the next man at the table, one of the two younger, black-haired, and quite drunk Sparhawks. “Your ruddy Lordship? Damnation, Anthony, no wonder you’ve been eying this wench all evening!”

Instinctively Catie moved back. Long ago she’d learned from her stepfather to keep an arm’s distance between herself and men who’d drunk too much, but by edging away from one Sparhawk she’d moved closer to the first, the fair one they were calling Anthony. Before she could protest—before she noticed, really—he’d taken her hand and begun lightly tracing his finger along her bare arm, from her wrist to the inside of her elbow and back.

“She’s merely displaying inestimable judgment of my true worth, that’s all, cousin,” he said, his lazy, green-eyed gaze never wavering from hers as his touch trailed across her skin. “As well as proving beyond question why the ladies smile more favorably in my direction than in yours. Isn’t that so, pet? Ah, a lass as wise as she is lovely.”

She knew she should pull her hand free. With any other man, she’d have done so already.

But not with him. The gentleness of his touch disarmed her, the feather-light caress across her skin leaving her speechless with startled pleasure.

“Alas, sweet child, I’m not your lordship, or anyone else’s, either,” he continued. “Merely plain Anthony Sparhawk, of Franklin County in Massachusetts Bay, and these two worthless rogues are my cousins Jonathan and Joshua. Your servant, ma’am.”

“Nay, but I am the one serving you!”

He chuckled, a rich, deep sound that warmed Catie even over the din of the taproom. “It’s only an expression, sweet. A politely meaningless turn of phrase. Though I’d be most honored to turn the tables—ah, another expression, eh?—for so pretty a serving lass.”

Confused, Catie looked away, down, as the immaculate linen of Anthony’s ruffled cuff fell across her own red, rough little hand with its bitten nails. It was all nonsense, him calling her pretty and lovely, the sort of claptrap drinking men always said in taverns when the rum was doing the talking. She wasn’t lovely and never would be. But oh, from a man this gentle, this charming, this beautiful, how she wished it were true!

“’Ere now, Catie, where’s our rum?” demanded an irritated male voice behind her. “Or be you too busy playin’ patty-hand with them fancy cockerels t’ serve us honest laborin’ men?”

There was nothing gentle about the hand that suddenly snaked around her waist now, yanking her away from Anthony and nearly off her feet. Zeb Harris was a regular customer, a hawser in the shipyard, and he and his four friends all roared with laughter as Catie stumbled, barely catching herself on the edge of their table.

“Off with you, you little hussy, an’ fetch our rum,” growled Zeb as he smacked her backside. “Else I’ll complain t’ Master Hazard.”

“Oh, n-no, Zeb, you needn’t do that!” stammered Catie hastily, at once humiliated and contrite and strangely close to tears. “I’ll fetch it right now, I promise. ’Twas wrong to keep you waiting, Zeb, and I vow it won’t happen again!”

But as she turned to hurry to the bar, she ran instead squarely into the broad chest of Anthony Sparhawk. Lord, she’d no notion he’d stand so tall, nearly a head more than herself.

“Oh, sir, forgive me, I didn’t mean to—”

“Hush now, no harm’s done,” he said, smiling as he gently steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. “Far mightier foes than you have tried to do me in, and I always prove remarkably hardy. And mind you, no more apologies, either.”

Mutely Catie nodded. The light pressure of his palms was as oddly unsettling as his fingertips had been on her wrist, yet once again she felt incapable of pulling free.

“Enough of your dawdlin’, you lazy little hussy!” roared Zeb impatiently. “Now leave your fancy boy be till later, an’ fetch my rum!”

Catie felt Anthony tense, though his face didn’t lose its smile as he looked over her head to Zeb. “The lady,” he said pointedly, “doesn’t wish to hear your insults, any more than you deserve her attentions.”

In an instant the taproom fell silent. Every eye was turned toward Catie and the two men, every ear strained to hear Zeb’s reply.

Zeb shoved back his chair as he rose to face Anthony. “Catie Willman ain’t no lady,” he said belligerently. “She’s a ha’penny rum-shop wench that’s paid t’ do as I say. An’ you’ll keep your fine nose out o’ my say-so, if you don’t want it broken.”

“Shall I now?” asked Anthony with a mildness that fooled no one. “And here I was going to offer you the exact same advice.”

Trapped between them, Catie looked frantically from Zeb to Anthony and back again, her hands twisting in her apron as she felt the hostility flaring on either side of her. The two men were matched in height, but Anthony, in his blue superfine jacket and embroidered waistcoat, was a gentleman, and what could such a gentleman know of tavern brawls? Zeb’s muscular arms were larger from toiling in the shipyards than most men’s thighs, and his strength was combined with both a notoriously short temper and a fearsome long knife that everyone in the Crossed Keys knew well to avoid.

Everyone, that is, except the Sparhawks. The two dark-haired cousins had come to stand behind Anthony, their good-natured drunkenness vanished as they curled their hands into fists at their sides. The tables around them had emptied with an unimaginable speed, with men clambering over chairs and benches to find a safer place—something Catie wished she could do, as well.

“You must not do this, Mr. Sparhawk,” she said urgently, drawing herself up as tall as she could to appeal to Anthony. “I’m just as Zeb says, a serving lass, nothing more. I’m not worth this!”

“Hidin’ behind the chit’s petticoats, are you now, my lord?” taunted Zeb, mimicking Catie. “’Feared you’ll soil yourself, are you, my lord?”

At last Anthony’s smile vanished, his dark brows coming together in a single line as he guided Catie to the side and out of the way.

“Mind yourself, pet,” he ordered, swiftly shrugging his arms free from his jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair. “This will be but the work of a moment.”

“But Mr. Sparhawk, sir, you’ll—”

“It’s Anthony, sweet, just Anthony. None of this mistering between us.” The quick, fleeting grin, almost boyish, was for her alone, as was the selfmocking wink. “Not now, and certainly not later.”

“Anthony, is it?” taunted Zeb, shifting back and forth on his feet in anticipation. “Ah, Anthony’s such a right manly name!”

From the corner of her eye, Catie saw Ben Hazard come trotting across the room, his round face puckered with anxious concern. No wonder, thought Catie— they all knew how dearly the last fight Zeb began had cost the tavern in broken crockery and chairs. And if the board that granted the keepers’ licences learned that a party of Newport’s finest young gentlemen had been injured here in a brawl, then the Crossed Keys could be ruined forever.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” cried Ben, his hands outstretched in his most conciliatory manner, to include both Zeb and Anthony. “Surely we can consider other, more peaceful ways to settle this dispute, eh?”

With a frown, Anthony glanced his way, and in that fraction of a second of inattention Zeb lashed out, his huge bunched fist flying through the air so fast that Catie shrieked. But though Zeb was fast, Anthony’s reflexes were even faster. Suddenly Zeb buckled over, his arms flailing ineffectually as he gasped for breath, Anthony standing over him with his legs widespread and scarcely a single gold hair disarranged. With an indignant roar, one of Zeb’s friends seized a spindleback chair and swung it at Anthony, who twisted and ducked as Jon Sparhawk lunged forward. Amid the crash of splintered wood, the three of them toppled to the floor in a tangle of flailing arms and legs, knocking over a table and sending spoons flying and bottles and plates shattering.

“Catie, here!” shouted Rebeckah, dodging forward to grab Catie’s hand and pull her clear. “Quick now, come with me!”

She shoved Catie over the counter of the bar and scrambled after her, slamming the grate back down for extra protection.

“Zeb and the others will kill those gentleman, I know it!” cried Catie as she and Rebeckah crouched together on the floor behind the bar, listening to the barrage of oaths and grunts and breaking wood.

“Nay, they won’t, not by half.” Unperturbed, Rebeckah eased the cork from the bottle of brandy she’d filched from the bar and drank deeply. “Gentry or common-bred, most men be the same as curs in the street when it comes to a good scrape.”

“But they’re—”

“No, they ain’t,” said Rebeckah flatly. “I told you them Sparhawks’d come down here for a bit o’ sport, an’ by Mary, they found it with Zeb an’ his lads.”

Unconvinced, Catie wrinkled her nose and tried not to imagine what was happening to Anthony Sparhawk’s beautiful face. She’d seen too many fights not to.

Rebeckah cackled and poked Catie in the side. “But what the devil were you about, setting that gentleman off like that?”

“I did no such thing!” said Catie indignantly. She shielded her head with her arms as an empty bottle struck the grate above them and bits of slivered glass showered down. “I only went to that table because you dared me! You saw how it was!”

“Oh, aye, else I never would have believed it. Plain Miss Priss teasin’ them Sparhawks into takin’on Zeb.” Rebeckah shook her head as she took another long swallow of the brandy, then frowned as she cocked her head toward the door. “There come the watchmen. That’ll put an end to th’ sport for tonight, and us left to do the tidyin’.”

At the sound of the harsh wooden rattle carried by the night watch, the sounds of the fight abruptly ended, replaced by running footsteps and shouted warnings as the combatants—and the customers—fled. Quickly Catie rose to peek through the grate, eager to see how Anthony had fared.

“That pretty man be long gone,” said Rebeckah, rising more slowly as she recorked the brandy and slid it into her pocket with a fond pat. “Nor will he show his face round here again. His sort never do. Nay, by morn he’ll forget he was even here, save for the bumps an’ scrapes.”

Forlornly Catie saw that Rebeckah was right. The taproom was empty, the floor littered with splintered furniture, puddles of spilled drink, and smashed dishes. Even the tavern’s most prized possession, the colored engraving of the king, swung crazily from its single nail over the fireplace. Catie tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, that he didn’t matter, but, miserably, she knew she was lying.

“Best forget him, same as he’s done with you,” advised Rebeckah philosophically. “Besides, you’re headed for trouble enough. Here comes ol’ Ben, an’ he don’t look pleased.”

One look at Ben Hazard’s furious face, his cheeks livid and his thin lips pressed tightly together, and Catie knew with a sinking feeling that Rebeckah was right once again.

“Rebeckah, go to the kitchen and fetch cloths and pails to clean up this wretched mess,” he ordered with an angry flick of his hand. “Nay, Catie Willman, you stay. I’ve words to say to you.”

With obvious relief, Rebeckah scurried off, leaving Catie to face Ben’s wrath alone. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, sir,” she began uneasily, “and if that’s what—”

“For God’s sake, girl, have you no wits?” With disgust he pulled off his wig and slapped it on the counter. “This—this shambles is the least of my trouble this night! I thought we had an understanding, Catie.”

“An understanding, sir?” said Catie faintly.

“Aye, Miss Cate, and don’t pretend we didn’t. Before this, I’d believed that by your interest in this trade and your willingness to work at it you would be equally willing to share the profits, as well as the toil.”

“Forgive me, Master Hazard, but I do not—do not follow you.” It was exactly, horribly, as Rebeckah had predicted, the only role for plain, dutiful Catie Willman.

Ben sniffed and scowled and twisted his mouth to one side. “How can I make it more clear, Catie? A tavern needs a woman’s eye to make it respectable and prosper, and I judged you able to fill that role. I’ve grand plans, Catie, enough to make us both proud. But the wife of a tavern owner must be a sober, hardworking woman, and after tonight—”

“The wife?” repeated Catie, her voice turning suddenly squeaky. “But you haven’t asked for me, any more than I’ve agreed to accept you!”

“If I haven’t spoken before this, it was because I did not feel such idle words were necessary between us.” Impatiently he thrust his fingers through his wispy hair, still matted flat by his wig. “Be honest, Catie. What better offer are you likely to have?”

Tears of frustration stung her eyes. If she was honest with herself, the way Ben asked, then she’d have to admit that his offer was a handsome one, a chance to improve her station far beyond what she’d dreamed when she ran away from her stepfather’s farm.

Yesterday, even this afternoon, Ben’s offer would have been enough. But that would have been before she heard the sweet, empty praise of Anthony Sparhawk, and discovered how much her poor, parched heart ached to hear such words again, sweet words meant for her alone.

And with no answer she could bring herself to speak, she turned and fled. She ran through the taproom and the kitchen and out the back door to the yard, and she didn’t stop until she reached the well, to lean against the rough bricks.

She didn’t want to be sober and plain and capable, and she didn’t want to work her life away as Ben Hazard’s wife. She was only seventeen, and she wanted to be pretty and merry and praised by a gentleman with golden hair and red silk flowers on his waistcoat. She wanted—oh, Lord help her, she didn’t know what she wanted, and with a muffled sob she buried her face against her forearm.

“Did they blame you for that foolish row, pet?” asked Anthony softly. “’Twas hardly your fault that we Sparhawk men regard such scrapes as entertainment.”

Startled, Catie swiftly raised her head. He was standing there in the shadows on the other side of the well, his jacket and waistcoat gone, one sleeve of his fine linen shirt torn in a strip from the shoulder.

“Mr. Sparhawk!” Self-consciously she rubbed away her tears with the heel of her hand instead of taking the handkerchief he offered. “Oh, dear Lord, look at you! Are you hurt? I can take you into the kitchen and—”

“No, lass, I swear I’m none the worse for wear.” He stepped into the moonlight to show he’d no hideous bruises or blackened eyes. “And for the last time, it’s Anthony, not Mr. Sparhawk.”

“Anthony, then.” She frowned and clucked her tongue with dismay. “But look what’s become of your beautiful clothes!”

“Ha! Old rags, not to be missed.” Dramatically he held his arms out straight at his sides so that the tattered fabric fluttered in the breeze. “You know, I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

She hoped the shadows hid her flush of pleasure. He had come back, no matter what Rebeckah said, and he’d come back to see her. “Why did you take my side against Zeb?”

“What, because you’re a serving girl in a sailors’ tavern?” He let his arms drop back to his sides and walked around the well to join her. “Ah, that you must blame on my grandfather’s teachings. His own chivalrous inclinations were wonderfully universal, an indubitable doctrine I espouse as my own, as well.”

To her shame, she hadn’t the faintest idea what he’d just told her. Such grand language the gentry used!

“But why?” she asked hesitantly, praying another question would not displease him. “Why me?”

“Because I wished it, pet. Because you’re fresh and pretty, with marvelous, solemn eyes that shine like polished pewter.” He was studying her intently, almost frowning, like an artist composing a painting. “You color most charmingly, too, you know, especially by moonlight.”

“But I’m not pretty,” she protested. “It’s very gallant of you to say that foolishness about my eyes, but I know they’re just gray, just as I know my face is too round and my hair’s drab and straight. I know I’m plain. Everyone tells me so.”

“Then everyone may go to the devil.” Gently, easily, he drew her close, guiding her arms around his waist. “Someday you’ll be more beautiful than all of them put together.”

“But I—”

“Hush now, and listen to me.” He cradled her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “The loveliest flowers are often the ones that take the longest to blossom. I can see the promise of real beauty in this charming little face already, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

For an endless moment, Catie let the sweetness of his words wash over her, before she forced herself to break away. “We can’t stay here. Someone may see us from the tavern.” Someone like Ben Hazard, she added mentally. How she’d hate for him to spoil this moment with his grumpy face! “Come, across here to the stable.”

Shyly she took his hand. Anthony Sparhawk wasn’t like the other men from the tavern that she’d always avoided. He was a gentleman, and he had defended her against Zeb. How could she not trust him?

“I was born on a farm,” she explained as she led him across the shadow-filled yard to the stable that shared the well with the Crossed Keys, “and when I cannot bear the city crowds and noises any longer, I come here to be alone with the beasts. Mr. Freeman— he’s the ostler—he understands, and lets me come and go as I please.”

Carefully she unfastened the latch and slipped inside, pausing for Anthony to follow her up the ladder to the loft. Her feet slipped deep into the mounded hay, the fragrance musty and redolent of summer. She knelt beside the narrow window and looked out at the harbor and the ships at the moorings.

“When all the sails are furled like that, I think the masts look like trees,” she said dreamily, the breeze from the harbor cool on her cheeks. “A whole magic, silvery forest on the water.”

She heard the straw rustle as he came to kneel beside her. “How old are you, pet?”

“Seventeen,” she admitted, hoping he wouldn’t think her a child. “But I’ve been working in Newport on my own since last spring.”

“That makes seven years between us. Was I ever as young as you, I wonder?”

She turned and smiled. “Of course you were,” she said. “Seven years ago.”

“Of course.” Gently he tugged off her white linen cap, letting her fine, pale hair spill over her shoulders. “In the morning I’ll be sailing in one of those ships for England. After years of fighting the French for king and country, my grandfather’s at last seen fit to reward me with a lieutenancy in a real regiment. My commission’s waiting in London.”

“London?” said Catie unhappily as she shook her hair back from her eyes. He might as well have said the moon. “When will you come back?”

“Ah, that only God in His mercy can answer. One year or ten, or maybe not at all.” He spoke with such a brave melancholy that it tore at her heart, and impulsively she slipped her arms around him, eager to take the sorrow from his blue eyes.

“You must not talk that way,” she said fiercely, pressing her cheek against the fine linen of his shirt. “You will come back, I know it.”

He sighed, letting his hands settle around her waist to hold her against his chest. “A good soldier’s life isn’t his own, pet, and he never knows when it may be forfeit.”

“But that’s so sad!” cried Catie, pushing herself back so that she could search his face. With all his grim talk of war and soldiering, she had meant to comfort him, but she was the one who felt safe here, his arms around her making a special haven in the warm, fragrant straw. “How can you bear to sail from home, knowing you may not live to return?”

With infinite care, he slowly traced the bow of her upper lip. “You can help me bear it, sweet,” he said, his voice deep and low. “Give me a memory to take with me.”

He kissed her then, as lightly at first as his touch had been, brushing his mouth across her lips until they parted willingly for him. If he wished to take the memory of her kiss with him into battle, then she’d give it gladly. How, really, could she not?

But in the first instant, disappointment stung her, for he tasted unmistakably of rum. How could he share this same rare joy that she felt if his senses were clouded by liquor? Then he deepened the kiss, his mouth warm and sure, and she forgot the rum and everything else in the heady new sensations swirling through her.

Drawn into his passion, she scarcely noticed that he’d lowered her back into the rustling pillow of the straw, or that somehow her skirts had become tangled above her knee as he caressed the soft skin above her stockings and garters until she sighed into his mouth with pleasure.

But still she started when she felt his hand roam higher, and clumsily she tried to move away and push down her skirts.

“You—you must not,” she gasped raggedly as she broke off their kiss. “No, Anthony, please.”

“Yes, sweet lass, yes,” he murmured, his breath warm on her ear. “I told you I was a chivalrous man, and I mean to prove it. You’ll have your pleasure from me, be sure of that.”

And Catie gasped, her protests forgotten as he kept his promise. She had no words to describe the delicious heat that filled her body as he kissed her and touched her again, or experience to warn her what would come next as her body arched with instinctive wantonness.

Another moment, her ravished senses pleaded with her conscience, only another precious moment more.

The pleasure spiraled dizzily upward, and her conscience fell silent. Lost in her own world, she didn’t try to stop him as he shifted on top of her. He was a gentleman, her Anthony, and she would trust him not to harm her.

She would trust him; and then came the sharp, sudden hurt that ended that trust and the pleasure with it, and the helpless little cry tore from her heart when she realized too late what he’d done, what she’d done, and now could never undo.

Afterward he smiled down upon her as he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and called her his own sweetest pet, coaxing her to smile, too. But she didn’t smile; nor did she weep, either, not even when he heard the ribald, drunken bellow from the street and with an oath rolled off her to one side. All she did was close her eyes so that she would not have to see the shame of his nakedness.

“Damn Jon,” muttered Anthony as he buttoned the fall of his breeches and bent to peer from the window into the street below. “He’ll bring the whole bloody watch back here again.”

He turned back to her, shaking his hair back from his face as he shoved his shirttails back into his waistband. “I must go now, pet,” he said hurriedly. “I’ve still much to do, packing and such, before I sail, and besides, it’s high time I stopped my sot of a cousin from braying like a jackass at the moon.”

She’d sat up by then, tucking her petticoats tightly over her legs and hugging her bent knees to her chest. She could not understand why there was no blood on her shift to prove she’d been a maid, and miserably she wondered if that was a sign of her wickedness and sin.

He fumbled in his pocket, his fingers jingling coins together. He held them out to her as he bent to kiss her farewell, silver coins shining in the moonlight that had lost all its magic.

“Go,” she said softly, lowering her face to avoid his lips. Now she was only a fool, but if she took his money she would be something far worse. “Just—just go.”

And without another word, he left. She listened to the ladder from the loft creak beneath his weight, and heard the thump of the latch as he let himself out, the echo of his footsteps fading down the street while one of the horses in the stalls below stirred and nickered sleepily.

Alone in the silence, she closed her eyes. No matter how tightly she curled herself, the cold, empty hollowness deep inside wouldn’t go away. It was bad enough that she’d lost her maidenhead here in the straw like a common strumpet, to a man who’d never bothered to learn her name. But worse still was knowing that when Anthony Sparhawk took the innocence of her body, he’d also destroyed the innocence of her heart, and her future with it. And that she would never be able to forget.

Or forgive.

Chapter Two

Eight years later

Newport Rhode Island December 1776

The streets that should have been alive with people at this time of the morning were as quiet and still as if it were midnight. Houses and shops were shuttered. The market house was empty. Even the church bells failed to toll the hour. Only the raucous mewing of the gulls that wheeled over the lifeless ships in the harbor proved it was indeed day, rather than night.

Uneasily Major Anthony Sparhawk of His Majesty’s Royal Welsh Fusiliers scanned the silent houses, sensing the hostility of the eyes that watched from behind the shutters. How many rifles and muskets and pistols were hiding there, too, ready to offer the only welcome he and his men could expect?

He rode at the head of his regiment, their bright red uniforms and tall fur caps making a brave show for the secret watchers on this cold, gray December morning. So far, they’d taken the island without a single casualty, and a blatant display of the king’s forces like this was calculated to keep it that way. Besides, Rhode Islanders had never been as extreme in their politics as the mob in Boston were. Here, surely, King George would have more friends than enemies.

A day for rejoicing, thought Anthony. Hadn’t they managed to capture the best harbor in the northern colonies? Perhaps at last the British luck was changing for the better. No wonder every brass button was proudly polished, every man’s hat cocked to the same degree, every musket and bayonet held at the same precise angle, as they marched in practiced unison through the Newport streets Anthony remembered so well.

Eight years had passed since he was here last. To his eyes, the town looked much the same, and yet everything—everything—had changed.

He was a major now, an officer in one of the finest regiments in the army. And because the land where he was born, the New England he still thought of as his home, was in open rebellion against the king he’d sworn to serve, he was also now the enemy.

He tightened his chilled fingers around the reins, striving to get the blood flowing through his hands again. Like the rest of the British troops, he’d been soaked to the skin by an icy rain when they landed from the transports at Weaver’s Cove, and two nights spent on a windswept hillside had left him feeling the ache in every one of the old wounds that marked his body. He’d be thirty-three his next birthday, and this wretched campaign against the American rebels had made him feel every day of it.

As if to mock his age even more, the youngest officer in the regiment, a lieutenant from Dorset whose voice had barely broken, came racing up to ride beside him.

“General Ridley’s compliments, sir, and he says to tell you that you’re to be quartered at…quartered at…” Peterson gulped and referred nervously to the crumpled paper in his hand. “At a tavern in Farewell Street. That’s three streets to the north, sir, and—”

“I know perfectly well where Farewell Street lies,” snapped Anthony irritably. He’d already received these orders once this morning, before they broke camp, and he didn’t need to have them repeated as if he were in his dotage. “And I know the tavern in question.”

“Of course, sir,” said Peterson immediately, his cheeks flushing. “Forgive me, sir. I should have recalled your familiarity with the rebels’ town, sir.”

Anthony didn’t answer. Oh, aye, he knew this town well, too well. Hadn’t he spent half his summers here as a boy, clambering up and down the entire island with his Sparhawk cousins? It was the reason he’d been chosen as one of General Ridley’s adjutants for the duration of the action in Rhode Island. A considerable honor, that, though one he hadn’t particularly wished to receive.

Still the young lieutenant hung doggedly at Anthony’s side, refusing to be dismissed. “The general said I was to take you to your quarters directly, sir. Your baggage is already there. Afterward he expects you to report to him, sir.”

Briefly Anthony glared at the younger man, then swung his horse away from the ranks to follow. He’d rather see his men properly cantoned, but being one of Ridley’s staff officers carried a whole different set of responsibilities. If the general wished him to report to the tavern now, he had no choice but to obey.

Ridley had made no secret of his reasons for quartering Anthony there, instead of with the rest of the general’s staff. Anthony was expected to make the most of his colonial background and strive to win the confidences of the tavernkeeper and his people, reporting whatever he learned.

Gathering information, Ridley had delicately called it. Spying, Anthony had thought with disgust. Listening at keyholes in a public house seemed a low, dirty task for a king’s officer. But those were his orders, and if such foolishness would help put down the rebels, then it was his duty to do it.

A pair of guards had already been posted on either side of the door to the tavern, marking it as officers’ lodgings, and his regiment’s flag—dark blue centered with the three plumes of the Prince of Wales—hung limply from the staff over the doorway. With disgust, Anthony wondered how many of the local townspeople, particularly those sympathetic to the rebels, would dare cross that threshold to reach the taproom on the other side.

Briefly he paused on the steps, letting Peterson swallow his impatience. Unlike many taverns that had begun life as a private home, this one had clearly been built to the purpose, a large, imposing public house with a gambrel roof and an elaborately carved pediment, complete with a pineapple for hospitality over the door. According to the gilded signboard, the tavern was now called Hazard’s, and from the fresh coat of dark red paint and the new kitchen ell to the rear, Mr. Hazard had clearly prospered.

But to Anthony’s surprise, no one came to greet them as they stepped inside. Whatever Hazard’s politics, it was poor business to keep guests waiting. Anthony unhooked his cloak and walked into the front room off the hall to warm his hands over the fire. The furnishings were elegant enough to grace a private parlor: mahogany chairs cushioned in leather, tavern tables with polished brasses, a chinoiserie mirror over the mantel and framed engravings on the walls. From the kitchen drifted the aroma of roasting, seasoned beef, tempting enough to make Anthony’s mouth water in anticipation. No ordinary rum shop, this, he thought with approval; lodging here would be infinitely more comfortable than a water-soaked tent on a windswept hillside.

That memory alone was enough to make Anthony lean closer to the fire, relishing the warmth clear through his body. “Have you met this host of ours, Peterson?” he asked. “He’s being so dilatory in his greeting that I’m beginning to suspect the fellow doesn’t exist.”

“He doesn’t,” said a woman behind him, her voice brittle with hostility. “At least he doesn’t any longer. My husband died two years ago of apoplexy, and thankful I am that he’s spared the sight of this house overrun with red-coated soldiers.”

“Then perhaps, ma’am,” answered Anthony, “it is also well that he died before he saw his colony turned traitor to His Majesty.”

Before he turned to face her, Anthony drew himself up to his full height, determined to let the woman feel the full impact of that officer’s uniform. In the black riding boots with the silver spurs, he stood over six feet, and in his immaculately cut red coat with blue facings and regimental lace over the white waistcoat and breeches, his sword hanging at his hip and the rose-colored sash of a staff officer around his waist, he was confident that he cut a far more imposing figure than any of his counterparts among the shabby American forces.

“Your servant, ma’am,” he said, and smiled, depending on the reliable charm of that smile to complete the work of the uniform. With women, anyway, it generally did.

But not, apparently, with this one. “My servant, or my oppressor?” she asked acidly. “You must be one or the other, for I can’t see how you could possibly be both.”

“Mistress Hazard,” said Peterson hastily, “may I introduce Major Anthony Sparhawk of the Twentythird Regiment, adjutant to General Ridley. Major Sparhawk, Mistress Catharine Hazard, proprietress of this establishment.”

Anthony smiled again and bowed slightly in acknowledgment, while she in her turn did nothing. Blast her impertinence, he thought irritably. Not only was it an insult to the crown he represented, but such rudeness stung his pride, as well. Mrs. Hazard was a beautiful woman, and beautiful women seldom scorned him like this.

In peacetime she’d be too young to be a widow, perhaps only in her middle twenties, and far too young for the responsibility of running so large a tavern. Her hair was the pale color of new wheat, her eyes a solemn gray that was at odds with a mouth that could, he suspected, blossom into ripe, lush temptation under more auspicious circumstances. She dressed with a peculiar blend of respectability and elegance in a flowered wool gown with a kerchief of sheer embroidered lawn tied over the front, a starched apron around her small waist and a gold locket in the shape of a heart pinned to the front of her bodice.

“You will forgive me, Major Sparhawk, if I have left you too long to enjoy this fine fire and this handsome, comfortable room,” she said, her sarcasm impossible to overlook. “I am somewhat shorthanded today, you see. A number of my people fled when they heard you and your brethren had come to save us from ourselves.”

“It is seldom the way of war to be agreeable, ma’am,” said Anthony evenly, determined to keep his temper. He knew she was baiting him, but the knowledge didn’t make it any easier to bear. “Perhaps you should be grateful instead that our coming was so peaceable, and that none of your people were wounded or killed in the process.”

She cocked one eyebrow and tipped her head, her gray eyes narrowing skeptically. “Grateful? Oh, I’d be a good deal more grateful if I weren’t expected to offer food and shelter to you and your men. I’m told I’ll have two dozen soldiers sleeping on mats in my attic alone.”

“You will receive just compensation for the quarters, ma’am,” said Peterson promptly, “and the men will receive their usual provisions, both fresh and salt. I thought I’d explained that well enough before.”

But Anthony doubted she even heard the lieutenant, her gaze was so fixed on him. “What of my four maidservants, major? They are accustomed to attending gentlemen and ladies of the better sort, not a troop of rough soldiers.”

“You have my assurance, ma’am, that the women will be unharmed,” said Anthony. If the maidservants were half as prickly as their mistress, then his men were the ones who’d need defending, not the other way around. “There will be no problems with my men. I give you my word upon it, both as a gentleman and an officer.”

To his surprise, Mrs. Hazard abruptly lost her studied composure as bright pink patches appeared on either cheek. “Your word as a gentleman, sir? As an officer?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, intrigued by the change the blush made in her face, “my word as both, and you’ve no reason to doubt either.”

“Indeed.” Her mouth twisted into a tight little smile that made no sense to Anthony, and then, with a sudden flurry of petticoats, she turned on her heel. “If you will but follow me. Major, I’ll show you to your room.”

Anthony gathered his hat and cloak, nodded to Peterson, and followed her to the staircase, still wondering what he’d done or said to make her blush so becomingly. He wished he knew for certain; he’d like to do it again.

Sorting through the jingling keys on her ring, she walked up the stairs briskly before Anthony, giving him an unintentional but appealing display of her ankles. Her yellow thread stockings matched her gown, the worked flowers the same pink and blue, and he smiled to himself. No matter that the British army had invaded her town. Mistress Hazard had still found the time and presence of mind this morning to match her stockings to her gown when she dressed.

“I have put you here in the green room, Major,” she said as she unlocked the door and pushed it open, standing to one side to let him pass. “I trust it will suit?”

“How could it not, ma’am?” Anthony tossed his hat and cloak on the bed, noting with satisfaction that his trunk and saddlebags had already arrived. Like the rest of the tavern, the room was simply but elegantly furnished, the tall-posted bed hung with the dark green chintz that must have given the room its name. “We poor soldiers seldom have such grand quarters.”

Her glance alone managed to scornfully dismiss his comment for the gallantry it was. “According to the lieutenant, you’ll have a cord of wood for your fire delivered here each week. I suggest you draw your curtains tightly around the bed at night, Major Sparhawk. Clearly your dear king is unfamiliar with Rhode Island winters, else he would have granted his officers three cords instead of one.”

With her arms folded over her chest, she walked across the room to the window. She moved gracefully, the ring of keys swinging from her waist and clinking with each step. “I thought you would prefer this room in the front, where you and your guards can see who comes and goes and make sure none of us wicked rebels tries to escape.”

But this time Anthony wasn’t listening to her gibes. The weak winter sun was slanting through the window, lighting the full curve of her cheek in a way that seemed oddly familiar. He thought again of how she’d blushed, and that, too, helped drag up some fragment of a memory.

“We’ve met before, Mrs. Hazard, haven’t we?” It was less a question than a statement, and he frowned as he stepped closer to her, trying to find her place in his past. “Here in Newport, long ago. At a party, perhaps, a dance or assembly?”

“You’re mistaken, Major,” she said quickly, too quickly for it to be anything but a lie. Restlessly she touched her fingers to the polished gold locket on her bodice. “You and I would never have been guests at the same houses.”

He waved his hand impatiently, as if to brush aside her denial. “I told you it would have been long ago, long before this rebellion. I was sickly as a lad, and my grandparents sent me here to take the sea air. Even after my health improved, I returned from affection alone. I stayed with my uncle, Captain Gabriel Sparhawk. Perhaps at his house, we might have—”

She stared at him, openly incredulous. “You truly have no shame, no loyalties, do you? For you to dare to speak of a gentleman as fine and good as Gabriel Sparhawk, a gentleman I’ve been honored to know both in business and in friendship?”

Anthony’s frown deepened. “And why should I not speak of my own uncle?”

“Why not, indeed, considering everything else that has befallen him and his poor wife these last days?”

“I do not—”

“No, you do not and you did not,” she said sharply, her eyes flashing. “Or will you pretend that you didn’t know your uncle was on your general’s list of rebels to be taken prisoner? At least his true friends saw to it that he escaped in time, he and Mistress Sparhawk and their last daughter Rachel. At least now they’re safe from you.”

Anthony listened, considering how much of her raving to believe. In Boston and on Long Island he’d seen himself how cunning the rebels could be at manipulating emotions with half-truths for their own purposes, and Mrs. Hazard could well be doing exactly that

He had not heard from his uncle or his cousins for years, but given the mails between old England and new, that was hardly unusual. As soon as he learned that the regiment was bound for Newport, of course he’d thought of his relatives there, but it was inconceivable that a gentleman as intelligent and respected as his uncle Gabriel would have let himself be swayed to support treason.

For whatever reason, then, the Hazard woman was lying. But what the devil did she hope to gain by doing so?

“My uncle and his family would never have cause to fear me,” he said, carefully watching Mrs. Hazard’s face. “He must know that, but if you tell me where I might find him, I’ll be happy to reassure him and my aunt myself.”

Instantly the woman’s face shuttered against him. “Forgive me, Major Sparhawk, but in truth I cannot say.”

“Cannot,” he asked, “or will not?”

“Either one amounts to much the same thing, doesn’t it, Major?” She smoothed the sleek wings of her hair with her fingertips, making sure no loose strands trailed from beneath her cap. “Now, if there’s nothing more you’ll be requiring from me, I have other matters to tend to.”

She left him by the window, her head bowed to avoid meeting his eyes as she began to close the door after her.

“One last question, Mrs. Hazard,” called Anthony, and reluctantly she looked back. He smiled slowly, almost teasingly, holding her attention for a fraction longer than was necessary.

“Mrs. Hazard, ma’am. You’ve been so good as to house my men in your attic and my junior officers in your lesser rooms, and you’ve been especially kind to grant me this splendid chamber for my own use. But where, ma’am, will that leave you to lay your own weary head this night?”

“Your concern touches me, Major Sparhawk. Where shall I sleep?” She smiled with an insolence that challenged his own. “In my own bed, behind a locked door, with a loaded musket on the pillow beside me. Good day to you, Major. And may the devil rot your red-coated soul in the black hell you deserve.”

The door clicked shut, and Anthony smiled. If she wanted a battle from him, then a battle she’d get. He’d make her his second, more personal, Rhode Island campaign, another chance to subdue another rebel. And before he was done, he meant to make her surrender every bit as complete.

An hour later, her heart still beating too fast, Catie watched from the window of her bedchamber as Anthony Sparhawk finally left the tavern with two other officers, his unpowdered golden hair gleaming in the moment before he settled his hat. With a muffled groan, Catie closed her eyes and sank into the nearest chair, and wondered at the impossibly cruel trick that fate had played upon her.

At least she’d had some warning from the young lieutenant. If she’d walked into the front room to find him there without it, she felt sure, she would have fainted dead away from the shock. He was, if anything, more handsome than she’d remembered, his face more ruggedly masculine, and the easy, inborn charm that had been her undoing so long ago was there still, too.

A week ago, she would have laughed at anyone who told her that Anthony Sparhawk would come back into her life. Didn’t she have more than enough Sparhawks in it already?

It was Gabriel Sparhawk who had long ago loaned Ben the money to buy Hazard’s, with the stipulation that the tavern serve only Sparhawk rum, and even after her husband paid back the debt, Gabriel had remained involved with the business as a silent partner. After Ben’s death, Catie had come to regard Gabriel as a friend, as well, a trusted and powerful business advisor who helped make certain she could keep the tavern in her name. With his support, she’d been able to prosper where most other widows would have foundered and failed.

But she’d gained more than mere bookkeeping from the Sparhawks. Through the example of the old captain’s wife, Mariah, Catie had learned to speak and act like the gentry, and to match her manners and clothing to theirs. Soon more and more of the tavern’s customers had been gentry, as well, drawn by curiosity and the Sparhawks’ recommendations and won by Catie’s hospitality.

Yet not once in all that time had either Gabriel or Mariah mentioned a nephew named Anthony, and Catie had secretly rejoiced. It made perfect sense: Anthony had chosen to be a soldier, and soldier’s lives were notoriously short.

But not, it seemed, short enough. What were the phenomenal odds that Anthony Sparhawk’s regiment would be among those sent to subdue the American colonies, and then, even more unlikely, one of the three sent to invade Newport? Before this, the island had been considered impregnable, protected by nature and defended by the fort on Goat Island, and no one had seriously thought the British would even attempt to take the best harbor in New England.

But dare they had, and, worse yet, they’d succeeded, and now here she was, with Anthony Sparhawk beneath her roof. Once before, he’d come close to ruining her life, and now—Lord, he could bring her whole careful world crashing down around her.

With trembling fingers Catie unfastened the locket from her bodice and opened it. Inside one half lay curled a wisp of her daughter’s silvery baby hair, tied with a red thread, while on the other was the portrait Catie had had painted of Belinda two years ago, on her fifth birthday. The artist had perfectly captured the little girl’s serious smile and the wide green eyes that looked upon the world with a wisdom beyond her years.

So much like her mother, everyone said, the very image of Catie. Ben had always laughed and said what a blessing it was that his darling Belinda hadn’t favored her father instead.

But Belinda did favor her father, thought Catie miserably. Lord help them both, she did, more than anyone could ever have dreamed possible.

“Mrs. Hazard, there be—Oh, forgive me, mistress, but the door was open.” Self-consciously Hannah ducked her head, giving Catie time to compose herself. Hannah had worked for Ben Hazard long before he hired and then wed Catie, and the older woman’s cookery was one of the main reasons that he had prospered.

“No harm done, Hannah,” said Catie as she dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron and forced herself to smile. “’Twas my fault, leaving the door ajar like that. With all these wretched Britishers underfoot, I’ll have to change my ways, won’t I?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Hannah with obvious relief. Though she was at least thirty years Catie’s senior, Catie was the mistress, and mistresses were supposed to be the strong ones that everyone else depended upon.

But where, thought Catie unhappily, was she supposed to turn for comfort?

“Yes, indeed, Hannah,” she said, closing the locket with a soft click to repin it to her bodice. “There are many things that must change, whether we wish them to or not.”

Hannah’s glance followed the locket. “You’re fretting over your little girl, aren’t you?” she said sympathetically. “I’m sure Miss Belinda’s worrying over you, as well. But you did right to send her away, mistress. A house full o’ rough men’s no place for a sweet angel like Miss Belinda.”

Catie nodded, her smile tight. It wasn’t the score of rough men under her roof that she feared so much as the one very polished major. When two nights ago, at the first news of the invasion, she sent Belinda from Newport to stay with a married couple she knew near Nantasket, she’d had no idea how wise a precaution it would prove to be.

She rose briskly, determined to put aside her own worries. “Now, Hannah, I want you to make sure that you keep the cellar locked, and that you leave nothing—nothing—unattended in the kitchen as long as we must house these particular guests,” she warned. “While that puppy of a lieutenant assured me his men will receive daily rations from their quartermaster, I don’t believe for a minute they’ll be able to resist trying to steal a taste of your cooking.”

“Don’t know a man what can, mistress,” said Hannah proudly. “But any of them lobsterbacks come creepin’ into my kitchen, an’ they’ll answer to my cleaver.”

“We should have had you and your cleaver on the beach at Weaver’s Cove instead of that fool militia,” said Catie wryly, only half jesting. Certainly she and Hannah would have made a better show of defending their home. “Now, as for supper—”

“Beggin’ your pardon, mistress,” Hannah interrupted, “but Cap’n Jon’s still waitin’ downstairs at the back door. That’s why I came up here, to tell you.”

“Captain Sparhawk’s here? Now?” Without waiting for an answer, Catie gathered her skirts and hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen. Jon Sparhawk was known to be a brave man, a daring man, but he was tempting fate to come to Hazard’s when it was so full of British soldiers.

Yet when she reached the kitchen, the room was empty, Hannah’s pie crust sitting half-crimped in its pan on the table, the back door closed and latched. Puzzled, Catie went to bolt the door. Perhaps Jon Sparhawk had left to avoid one of the British guards, or perhaps, more likely, he’d simply realized how foolish it was for him to come to the tavern now.

The man’s hand closed over Catie’s mouth before she could scream, his other arm locking around her waist to drag her back from the door and window beside it. Frantically Catie plunged against him, struggling to break free, but the man only tightened his grip further, pinning her arms against her sides. He was so much bigger than she was, so much stronger, and, terrified, she instinctively seized the one defense left to her: as hard as she could, she bit the palm of his hand.

With a yowl of pain, the man released her. Stumbling forward, Catie grabbed the rolling pin from the table and wheeled round to face him.

“For God’s sake, Catie, did you have to bite me?” demanded Jon Sparhawk indignantly as he cradled his wounded hand.

“Did you have to scare me out of my wits?” Catie glared at him, the rolling pin still in her hand. In all the time she’d known Jon, he’d never dared treat her this way, and she didn’t like it, not at all. “With everything else that’s happening in this town, I certainly don’t need you creeping about my house playing footpad!”

“I’m not ‘playing’ at anything, Catie. No one in Newport is.” He scowled down at the bright red marks Catie’s teeth had left in his hand. “I didn’t want you to scream and raise a fuss, that was all. Did you know your yard is full of those British bastards?”

“They’re in my yard, my attic, and my best bedchambers,” said Catie with disgust. She tossed the rolling pin back on the table, dipped a rag in the water bucket and held it out to Jon for his hand. “They’re probably under the very bedsteads, as well, if I cared to look. How else would I know your cousin is one of them?”

Jon looked up sharply. “Then it is Anthony?”

“Of course it is,” said Catie, praying she’d be able to keep her voice even. Though she had known Jon for years, he had never made the connection between Ben Hazard’s wife and the nervous serving girl she’d been at the Crossed Keys, and she had no wish for him to realize it now. “I wouldn’t have sent the message to you if it wasn’t your cousin. There is, you know, a certain family resemblance.”

“Oh, aye, no doubt of that,” he said. “Even though Anthony’s turned traitor, his face would still mark him as a Sparhawk.”

He dropped into the chair beside the table, the skirts of his coat falling back so that Catie could see the pistols in his belt, silver-mounted and deadly elegant.

Purposefully she looked away. No matter what the circumstances, she didn’t approve of guns in her house, but she didn’t wish to challenge Jon on it now. “He thinks we’re the ones who are the traitors, Jon.”

Wearily Jon shook his head. His jaw was stubbled black, his eyes ringed from sleeplessness, and his clothes so rumpled that Catie doubted he’d been home to sleep since the British landed.

“Anthony wouldn’t say that if he’d stayed here at home, where he could see how bad things have become. He’ll come round to our side. You’ll see. Once he learns how Father’s been driven away—”

“He knows already.” Catie’s hands tightened into fists at her sides. “Though he pretended not to, and tried to trick me into saying more. Not a quarter hour past, he left for the general’s headquarters.”

Jon swore, long and furiously. “To my father’s house, you mean.”

Catie nodded. “The only loyalty your cousin has now is to that blessed red coat of his.”

“Then they’ve poisoned him against his own people,” he said flatly. “There’s no other explanation. I cannot believe—”

“Believe it, Jon, for it’s true,” said Catie vehemently. “Two minutes in your cousin’s company and you’d see for yourself. He’s not an American any longer. He’s one of them now, the worst kind of arrogant British officer, and he doesn’t care a fig for what happens to you or your parents.”

Jon’s expression hardened, the lines carved deep on either side of his mouth. “Then we’ll have to treat him with the same high regard, won’t we?”

He lowered his voice to a conspirator’s rough whisper. “As long as he’s under your roof, Catie, I want you to watch him. Listen to his conversations, note who comes to see him, charm him into trusting you. Then tell me whatever you learn.”

Startled, Catie drew back, her hands clasped tightly together at her waist She hadn’t expected Jon to ask her to do that, and she didn’t want to, not at all. To charm Anthony Sparhawk no, she couldn’t do it.

“I can’t, Jon,” she said, faltering. “I just—I can’t.”

“Oh, aye, you can, Catie, and you will,” said Jon firmly. “You’ll have chances to be near him that none of the rest of us will. It’s not that much to ask. Think of all the men risking their very lives for the cause.”

But if she did as he asked, her own life would be at stake, too. Already Anthony had nearly recognized her. The more time she spent in his company, the more likely it was that he’d be able to remember who she was. And once he did, her carefully ordered world would collapse like a wobbly house of playing cards.

“You don’t know what you ask, Jon,” she said miserably, unable to explain. “I can’t—”

“You will do it, lass,” said Jon, and the harsh edge in his voice warned Catie to obey. “Not just for the cause of freedom. You’ll do it for my father and my mother, as well. After all my family’s done for you, Catie Hazard, you will do this for us.”

Her conscience twisting the fear around her heart, Catie stared down at the pistols at his waist. Such guns weren’t an affectation with Jon; he’d use them if he had to. She thought again of how he’d trapped her earlier, and now she shivered at the thought of what he could have done. This was the other side of the Sparhawk family, the ruthless, violent side that she’d heard whispered of, but had never seen in the front room at Hazard’s, the side that had made them their fortunes as privateers and in a score of other risky ventures.

Including, she realized now, her own.

Her shoulders drooped, and she touched the locket with her daughter’s picture. For Belinda’s sake, she didn’t want to do as Jon asked, but for Belinda’s sake, too, she knew she had no choice.

“Very well,” she said softly. “But I’ll send word to you, mind? You must promise me not to come here again. It’s too dangerous.”

Jon’s heavy brows curled down with contempt. “War is dangerous, Catie. If I hadn’t wanted to do what I could against the British here in Newport, why, I would have taken the children and scurried off to Providence with my parents.”

“I almost wish you had,” said Catie wistfully, thinking not only of Jon’s family, but of Belinda, too. His three children had dozens of doting aunts, uncles, and grandparents to watch over them, but she and Belinda had only each other. “You know that’s what Betsey would have wished.”

His face grew studiously emotionless, the way it always did when he spoke of the pretty young wife he’d lost in childbirth two years before. “Betsey wished for many things.”

“This is one wish you could grant her,” said Catie gently. “All I’m saying is that I—that we—must be careful, Jon, very careful. Your cousin Anthony is not a man to take lightly.”

“And you be careful, too, Mrs. Hazard.” Unexpectedly he smiled, almost ruefully. “I know what I’m asking, Catie, and what it must cost you. You’re the most kindhearted woman I know, and here I am trying to turn you into a low, sneaking spy.”

But Catie’s smile in return was bleak. He didn’t know what he asked, and, God willing, he never would. As for being low and sneaking, she’d crossed that boundary long ago.

“It won’t be that hard for me, Jon,” she said softly. “I’m wonderfully good at keeping secrets.”

Chapter Three

“You’ve done well, Major Sparhawk, very well,” said General Ridley as he leaned back in his chair, making a little tent of his spread fingers on the mound of his belly. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t appreciate the importance of your contribution to this campaign. That little cove you suggested for the landing was a capital choice, sir, a capital choice. We’ve taken the best harbor in the north, one of the richest cities, too, and not a single man lost. I’d like to see Howe say the same, eh?”

He chuckled, his watery blue eyes glancing around the room, past Anthony, with smug pleasure. “And I ask you, Major, have you ever seen more handsome quarters! A house fit for a gentleman, this one, even an English gentleman, eh?”

Anthony nodded curtly, not trusting himself to say or do more. The house that the general had appropriated for his headquarters was the grandest one in town, as was proper. The pale winter sun filtered through tall windows hung with red damask that matched the coverings on the chairs. The mahogany tea table was set with a delicate service of Canton ware, the translucent porcelain rimmed with gold, and more of the china filled the two tall cupboards that flanked the fireplace. The wall paneling and the mantelpiece were the finest work of Newport woodworkers, as was the stairway in the front hallway, where candles had already been lit in the polished brass sconces.

Without doubt, the house was as fit for an English general as it was for an English gentleman, the best of everything. As it should be, Anthony told himself grimly. As it must be.

“Pity to think of all this wasted on a rebel rascal,” continued Ridley. “Too bad we let the old rogue slip away from us, else I would have packed him off to London for trial. Still and all, he won’t be able to cause us any more trouble here. His name was Sparhawk, too. Kin of yours, y’think?”

“A distant connection,” said Anthony, as evenly as he could. “An uncle.”

Blast it all, the Hazard woman had been right. How could a man who had served the king as well as had Gabriel Sparhawk—a man who’d fought under the British flag in at least three wars—now join with that ragtag pack of rebels? And what in blazes had become of his aunt and cousins? Unconsciously Anthony gripped the carved arm of his chair, struggling to control the emotions that roiled within him.

Ridley grunted, idly rubbing his thumb across one of his waistcoat buttons. “Uncle, eh? Someone told me he’d been a privateer in the old Spanish war. Damned successful at it, too, from the look of this place.” The general’s gaze wandered beyond the top of Anthony’s head. “You know my wife’s parlor in Bath. Do you think she’d fancy that looking glass there, the gilt one with the gewgaws on the top? There’s a dispatch ship sailing for home tomorrow, and I thought I’d send dear Chloe a little gift to keep me well in her thoughts.”

Anthony twisted in his chair to look over his shoulder, more to mask his feelings than to appraise the looking glass. Though Ridley’s own orders had been explicit about looting, he wasn’t overparticular about helping himself. It was common enough knowledge among the other officers, and cause for more than a few jests, about how crowded dear Chloe’s parlor would be by the end of the war.

But this time Anthony wouldn’t be among those laughing, not when his aunt Mariah’s looking glass was to be the plunder. Damnation, they must have fled with only the clothes on their backs, for everything else in the house to have been left exactly as he remembered it.

But would good could come of remembering? Better, so much better, to forget his uncle’s desk as it had been, piled high with shipping manifests and bills of lading, and how Uncle Gabriel would always find the time to break away from his work to talk to him and to Jon, to show them some rare coin from China or explain how the jiggling needle of a compass worked, the three of them standing there together, with the summer sun slanting in through the tall window and the sweet fragrance of Aunt Mariah’s gingerbread drifting up from the kitchen.

“Yes, I do believe the looking glass would suit Chloe,” the general was saying. “It’s nearly a match for the one I sent her from Boston.”

Slowly Anthony turned back in his chair. How that woman at the tavern must be laughing by now, her silver-gray eyes fair bubbling over with mirth at his expense. She’d been right about his aunt and uncle, of course, while he’d been appallingly wrong in his assumptions. What a pompous, blustering, ignorant fool he must have seemed to her!

Abruptly he shoved back his chair and rose, his sword swinging back against his thigh. “I’m certain Mrs. Ridley will be most pleased with whatever gift you make to her,” he said with a curt bow. “But if you’ll be so good as to excuse me, General, there are a good many other matters that need my attention.”

Ridley’s brows rose toward the front of his wig with mild surprise. “I’d say that such matters are my decision, sir, not yours.” He waved his hand back toward the chair. “And I say you stay until I dismiss you. Unless in your present choler you find my company intolerable, eh?”

It was all the reproof Anthony needed. He’d always been known as a moderate man, one who kept his temper in check. At least he had been before now. Swiftly he bowed again and sat, mentally cursing the woman who’d let him make such a fool of himself. If she’d been more honest with him, if only she hadn’t been so damnably coy, then perhaps—

“You’d do well to watch yourself, Sparhawk,” continued the general, subtly replacing the air of a genial country squire with something harder, sharper and far more astute than his enemies would have dreamed possible. At once Anthony was on his guard. Off the battlefield, Ridley seldom showed this side to his subordinates, and its appearance now could mean nothing good.

“Sir,” said Anthony. It was the only possible answer.

“Sir yourself, man, and listen to me.” Impatiently he drummed his thick-knuckled fingers on the top of the desk. “You know I trust you, Sparhawk. You’ve been with me for more years than I care to count, damn me if you haven’t, by my side through all the worst of this wretched campaign. Breed’s Hill, Long Island, especially that miserable showing at Lexington—not once have you given me cause to doubt your loyalty.”

“Yes, sir,” said Anthony stiffly, already guessing what was coming. “Thank you, sir.”

“Why else d’you think I’ve made you my adjutant here, eh? But there’s plenty of others here who say otherwise, and I can’t say I fault ‘em for it.” He leaned forward, his gaze shrewdly appraising. “You don’t want me in this house, do you, Major? You’re thinking I don’t belong here. You’re thinking I’m taking the place of that blackguard uncle of yours, and you’re thinking of him instead of your king.”

“But, sir, I can—”

“No, sir, you hear me out,” ordered Ridley, each word crackling with authority, and antagonism, too. “I was sent here to put down this rebellion, and I mean to do it. But, by harry, how can I be expected to subdue these damnable colonials when I’ve someone who sympathizes with the bloody rascals in the fore of my own regiment, eh?”

Anthony inhaled sharply. “Are you challenging my honor, sir, or my loyalty to my king?”

“What, and have it said that I’d called out one of my own officers?” retorted Ridley. “I’m too clever for that nonsense, Sparhawk, and so are you. But what else will people think, eh? This town as much as belonged to your people, scoundrels that they are, yet you turned your back on them as pretty as kiss-myhand. Who’s to say you won’t do the same to us in return?”

Anthony lunged forward, the rank between them forgotten as his long-simmering temper finally boiled over, and he struck his fist down hard on the desk, inches away from the general’s face. “I say it, and to hell with the man who dares say otherwise!”

“How dare you—”

“Sweet Mary, Ridley, if you slander me and then can’t explain your meaning any better than that, then I—”

“Remember yourself, Sparhawk!” barked Ridley. “At once, sir!”

The order shattered Anthony’s anger, years of training racing to silence him. Orders were to be obeyed; every good soldier knew that.

So what the devil was he doing now? Two steps behind him the general’s sentries had rushed through the door with their muskets raised, the gleaming barrels aimed at him, at him, and in that horrible moment he realized how close he was to facing a court-martial and the end of everything he’d worked so hard for.

Breathing hard, he jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned and shook his head in disbelief, appalled by what he’d done. Once again he’d lost control. To threaten his superior before witnesses, to raise his voice and bellow like a madman—for the sake of this one insane minute, his career might be over and done, and his life with it.

He drew himself up as tall as he could, his eyes staring impassively ahead. “Forgive me, sir. I do not know what came over me, but I give you my word that it will not happen again.”

“The devil it won’t.” Furiously Ridley glared at Anthony as he waved the sentries from the room. “Your unforgivable behavior here only proves that I’m right to doubt your allegiances.”

“But sir, I assure you that—”

“I want none of your assurances, Sparhawk,” snapped the general, his face purple above his neckcloth. “I want your loyalty. Now you watch yourself, watch every last bloody step you take. Because I’ll be watching, too, and next time, an outburst like that will break you. Do you understand me, Major Sparhawk?”

“Perfectly, sir,” said Anthony, and this time, when he bowed to take his leave, the general didn’t stop him. “Good day, sir.”

But instead of feeling relief at having escaped the punishment he deserved, Anthony continued to smolder with anger as he stalked through the still-empty streets. By the time he reached Hazard’s, he felt close to strangling with blind fury and frustration. The winter sun had set, and supper, such as it was, would be served soon, but the very notion of sitting down to dine with the other officers was more than he could stomach. Instead, he turned to the stable in back, ordering the black gelding that he’d brought from Boston to be saddled.

“Now what shall I fetch for the others. Major?” asked the groom, trying to look around Anthony and out the door into the yard. “How many more do you reckon be riding wit’ you?”

Anthony swung himself up into the saddle. “There are no others,” he said, gathering the reins in his fingers. “I’ll be riding alone.”

The man stared up at him, openmouthed with surprise. “Alone, sir?”

“Alone,” repeated Anthony curtly, and turned the gelding’s head toward the street.

He understood the groom’s surprise. He carried no weapon beyond his dress sword, and even half-hidden by his cloak, his uniform coat, glittering with lace and polished buttons, would stand out wherever he went. For him to travel unattended on this island was risky enough; to do so after dark was madness. But tonight Anthony was mad, or close to it, and as soon as he reached the edge of town he let the gelding have his head, urging the horse to race wildly into the darkness.

He headed south, then west, following the curve of the coast as the road became little more than a worn path. The way hadn’t changed over the years, and he followed it effortlessly, without having to consider his route. Overhead, pale clouds scudded across the stars and the silver moon in the icy-clear winter sky. The wind was cold here, near the sea, as cold as it had been when they landed, two days before, but tonight Anthony scarcely felt it.

At last he came to the last of the land, a rocky outcropping called Damaris Point, jutting into the sea, and he jerked the tired horse to a halt. Here he was alone; here, at last, he could think.

Damnation, he was English. How could the general say otherwise? Since he left the colonies, he’d come to think and act and feel like a true English gentleman, one born in London’s shadow, instead of in a house of peeled logs on the banks of the Connecticut River. He had learned to prize the neat, well-drilled precision of a line of soldiers in battle over the strike-and-run Indian fighting he’d practiced as a boy. He had put aside the rough ways of the frontier and instead perfected the hard-edged confidence of an officer in the most powerful army in Europe. His honor was his guide, his king his master, and in his well-ordered London world, that had always been everything.

Yet he was still a Sparhawk, too. He couldn’t deny that, either. Staring out beyond the rocks and waves, Anthony pulled off his hat and stuffed it beneath his coat, letting the salt-filled wind from the water whip against his face and clear away the confusion in his thoughts.

Of course he’d been shocked by the news of his uncle’s treachery. How could he not have been? In those early, homesick years, he’d written to his Newport relatives as often as he could, whenever he heard of a ship bound for the colonies. But because he moved so often with his regiment, he had had no permanent address of his own where they in turn might write to him. Without replies, his own correspondence had dwindled and then finally stopped. Otherwise, he might have known of his uncle’s dangerous inclinations, and wouldn’t have been taken so completely by surprise.

Aye, surprise, that was it. His uncle’s decision to embrace the traitors’ cause was unfortunate, even lamentable, considering it had brought about his ruin, but that was no reason for Anthony to destroy himself, too. His duty was to protect the decent, loyal subjects of the king and to subdue the rascals who’d broken the peace of the land. If that included his uncle, then so be it. His duty to the crown must come first, and the rest would follow. That was what his grandfather had taught him so long ago, and his grandfather had always been right.

Autumn was slow in coming that summer he turned eight. It was the middle of September, yet only the very tops of the maple trees had begun to turn from green to red, and there were still tall stalks of snapdragons— rose, white, palest yellow—nodding around the base of the sundial in Grandmother’s garden. A long summer, but a peaceful one, too, the first that Anthony could remember when the Frenchmen and their Iroquois allies hadn’t threatened the wide valley around Plumstead. Otherwise Grandfather would never have brought him out to these woods to hunt, far from the big house or any of the lesser farms. Most likely he wouldn’t have been on these lands at all, but off with the rest of the militia, fighting with the other king’s men against the French.

Anthony shifted his musket from one shoulder to the other and stole another glance at Grandfather. Grandfather was about the oldest gentleman Anthony knew, his long hair snow-white beneath the flat brim of his hat with the old-fashioned sweeping plume, but he was also the wisest and the bravest gentleman, too. Everyone in the valley said so. Though he’d given over being the leader of their county’s militia, Anthony heard how they still called him Captain Sparhawk instead of Master Sparhawk or just plain Kit, though only Grandmother did that. They all came to him whenever they had a problem, too, and day or night, there always seemed to be someone waiting in the hall to see Grandfather.

But not today. Today Anthony had Grandfather all to himself, and he couldn’t quite believe his good luck.

“Here, lad,” said Grandfather, holding back a branch for Anthony. “We’ll stop here for a moment, then onward to home.”

Anthony nodded, the shy little ducking of his head that he always used around Grandfather, and obediently clambered up the big rock before them. Beneath his tired legs, the stone felt smooth and warm from the sun, and with a contented sigh he settled as close to the older man as he dared.

Grandfather drank deeply from the wooden canteen, then handed it to Anthony. “Your grandmother will be glad to see us tonight, won’t she?” he said, cocking his head toward the three wild turkeys they’d shot, now lying on the rock beside them, with their feet bound together for carrying. “You’re a good companion, Anthony. You know the rare virtue of silence.”

Anthony flushed with pleasure, and prayed Grandfather would never guess that his silence came from being tongue-tied with awe, rather than from virtue.

Grandfather was studying him closely, his expression thoughtful. “You’re like your father, you know. He wasn’t full of empty talk, either, but there wasn’t a better man in the forest or in a fight. If you turn out like him, you’ll do well by yourself, and by his memory.”

Anthony handed him back the canteen, desperately wishing he’d hear more about his father. He’d been only a baby when his parents died and he remembered nothing of either of them. “I want to be like him,” he said wistfully, “’specially if he was like you.”

Grandfather grunted “Ah, well, Richard was more like your grandmother, small and dark, the way her people were. You’re more pure Sparhawk. The green eyes mark you, lad, like it or not. Cat’s eyes, eh?”

His smile was bittersweet as he rested his hand on Anthony’s shoulder, the weight heavy, but comforting, too. “There won’t be much I can do for you, Anthony. Your father was my youngest son, and by English law and entail there’s little to come your way.”

“I don’t care,” said Anthony promptly, and at that moment he didn’t. “I’m a Sparhawk, and that’s enough.”

Grandfather laughed “A good answer, that. But think well before you make such pledges. My father, and his father before him, were good, honorable men, strong men. There’s a responsibility to being in this family, you know, and it isn’t easy. In this valley, we’ve always been the ones to watch over those who can’t, to guard and treasure what we love most and believe in. Can you understand that?”

Anthony squinted a little as he looked up at Grandfather. The setting sun was bright around the old man’s shoulders, almost like a halo. “I think I do,” he said slowly. “You want me to help everybody and keep them safe from the French and make sure we all can be free, loyal Englishmen, the same way that you do?”

Grandfather laughed again, softly, and pride was warm in his eyes. “If you do half that much, Anthony, then you’ll do well indeed. Here, I’ve something for you.” He reached inside his hunting pouch and held out his open hand to Anthony. “A small trinket, I know, a bit of silver I’ve had fashioned for trading with the Abenaki, but still, it might serve as a reminder for you.”

It was a small silver disc, polished and gleaming against his grandfather’s lined, worn palm. Etched into the silver was a fierce bird with spread wings, perched on a stick or branch and surrounded by tiny stamped hearts.

“A hawk on a spar,” explained Grandfather as he traced his finger across the design. “A spar’s part of a ship’s mast, you know, or maybe you didn’t. A spar with a hawk. Spar-hawk, eh? There’s a pin on the back, too, so you won’t lose it.”

Anthony held his breath as Grandfather bent to pin the silver circle to his hunting shirt. He’d never had anything so beautiful or so wonderful in all his life.

“There now, Anthony,” said Grandfather. “Wherever you go, you look at this and you’ll always remember what we said this day.”

Anthony slipped his hand inside his cloak and touched the same pin on his waistcoat, there where he always wore it. With time, the silver had grown scratched and flattened, but the magic of that afternoon—and the message—had never dulled.

To be strong and watch over those who were weak, to guard and protect what he loved and treasured most—that was why he’d become a soldier in the first place, and why, too, he was here now. He must take care to remember that. With Ridley, he had let his reason and his judgment become clouded. He must not let it happen again.

And yet, strangely, it wasn’t his grandfather’s voice that echoed in Anthony’s conscience now, or the sharp taunts that had come from Ridley, but a softer, more passionate voice.

You truly have no shame, no loyalties, do you?

He swore to himself, ordering the woman’s words from his thoughts. But what remained was the woman herself, the way the winter sun had gilded her face as she stood by the window, her bowed head framed by the squares of the panes. Catharine Hazard could deny whatever she wished. He was certain they’d met before, and not just in passing. He thought again of her neat ankles in the colored stockings, and how—

Abruptly the gelding shied away at the sound of the musket shot, reduced by the wind to a dry, muffled crack, and Anthony pulled hard on the reins to wheel the frightened horse away from the sea. It was then that he heard the second shot, and felt the sharp, sudden bolt of pain rip through his upper left arm. Fifty yards to the west lay the dark shadow of low, scrubby pines, more than enough to shelter a man—or men— and their muskets.

Anthony swore again, cursing his own carelessness as he struggled to control the terrified horse. He dug his heels hard into the gelding’s sides and bent low over the animal’s neck, striving to make himself as small a target as possible as he raced back toward Newport.

Not that Anthony expected his assailants to follow. Rebels never did. Yet when at last he reached the town, he felt more relieved than he knew he had any right to, and he didn’t slow the gelding until Hazard’s swinging signboard was in sight.

The groom was slow coming from the stable, sleepily shoving his shirt into his breeches as he trotted forward to take the reins. Anthony winced as he swung his leg over the horse and slid to the ground, the impact jarring like a bolt straight to his arm. He knew the wound wasn’t a bad one, especially considering what it might have been, but his sleeve was wet and clammy with blood and his knees felt weak, and he prayed he’d be able to walk across the yard to the doorway without keeling over facefirst onto the paving stones.

Carefully he placed one foot after the other, holding his injured arm beneath his cloak as naturally as he could. If he wobbled now, the groom would merely believe he was in his cups, which was far better than letting the man spread stories about how the redcoat major had been fool enough to get himself shot.

Anthony gritted his teeth from the effort, his forehead glazed with sweat even on this cold night. He was almost to the back door now, where his manservant, Routt, would be waiting for him in the kitchen. Routt would know what to do; he’d mended far worse than this.

Inside the kitchen, Catie hurried to the window at the sound of the horse in the courtyard and peeked through the shutters. One flambeau was always kept burning for the sake of any late travelers, and by its dancing light she made out the tall shape of Major Sparhawk as he climbed from his horse. With a self-conscious shake of her skirts, she stepped back from the window and took a deep breath to calm herself. She’d been preparing for this moment all evening. So why, then, was she as nervous as a cat on coals?

She heard him try the door, discover it locked, swear to himself and knock instead. She almost smiled at that muttered oath, for the very human irritation behind it made him somehow less daunting.

“Who is it?” she asked. Though she knew full well who was there, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to make him wait that extra half minute.

“Major Anthony Sparhawk,” he said, his voice rumbling deep through the barred oak door. “Damnation, woman, open the bloody door!”

This time she frowned, not caring to have the oaths directed at her. It would serve him right if she left him out in the cold all night. But she had her promise to Jon to keep, and, setting her face in a smile she drew the bolt and swung open the door.

“Good evening to you, Major,” she said pleasantly as he brushed past her with a rush of icy air. “Though, faith, ‘tis well past midnight. Do all you English officers keep London hours?”

Anthony ignored her, in no mood or condition for banter. “Where’s my man?”

She closed the door and stood beside it, her hand still resting on the latch. He was hatless, his neat queue torn apart from the wind in a way that left his golden hair loose and wild around his face, dashing and dangerous, enough to make her feel once again like a giddy seventeen-year-old girl.

What Jon asked of her, she thought woefully, oh, what Jon asked!

“Your Mr. Routt?” she repeated, as offhandedly as she could. “I sent him to bed.”

Anthony wheeled around to face her, his long, dark cloak swirling around him. “You’d no right to do that. Routt reports to me, not you.”

“I’ve every right in the world, when he’s cluttering up my kitchen, getting himself underfoot with my cook,” she said defensively. “I sent him to his bed an hour ago, along with the rest of my own help. We’ve precious few customers tonight, thanks to you and I saw no reason to make them all wait up.”

“That still doesn’t give you the…give you the…” Lord help him, he couldn’t remember. All he knew now was that the fireplace was drifting upward at a crazy angle, and if he didn’t sit down directly he was going to fall down, here at her feet. He groped for the chair that must be behind him, his uninjured hand tangling clumsily in his cloak.

“Let me help you.” In an instant she was there at his side, her arm around his waist as she guided him into the chair. “Here you are, no harm done.”

But as soon as he was seated, Catie drew back, frowning down at the blood smeared on her hand and sleeve. Before he could protest, she gently lifted his cloak back over his shoulder to reveal the torn, bruised wound where the ball had ripped through his arm.

He grimaced, but didn’t flinch. At least for now, the fireplace had stopped spinning. “Not pretty, is it?”

“Not in the least.” To his surprise, she didn’t flinch, either. Deftly she unfastened the clasp at the neck of his cloak and pulled it off. “Is a jealous husband after you already?”

“Something like that.” He flexed his fingers and grimaced, noting how the blood still oozed fresh from the wound. “Send for my servant, Mrs. Hazard, so I can stop cluttering up your kitchen, as well.”

She looked at him sharply. “Don’t you wish me to summon a surgeon?”

“What, and have the news common on every street corner, with every rebel in town claiming credit for having done this?” He shook his head with disgust at his own foolishness. “No, thank you, ma’am. For now, I’d rather stake my luck on Routt.”

Catie bent closer to him, her arms akimbo as she studied the wound. At least now she had something safer than politics to discuss with him. “You don’t need Mr. Routt just yet. I can tend to this well enough myself.”

He glanced at her skeptically and tugged his neckcloth loose with his thumb. “How do I know you won’t put arsenic in the dressing, and thus be rid of one more wretched redcoat?”

“You don’t know. You’ll simply have to trust me.” Without waiting for an answer, Catie went to one of the wall cabinets and took down a wooden box filled in readiness with neatly rolled bandages and lint, scissors, needles and waxed thread. Next she hung a kettle of water over the coals to boil, and laid a clean towel and a dish of soap on the table beside Anthony.

Yet as Anthony watched her preparations, his doubts grew. The only other woman to nurse him had been his own grandmother, when he was still a boy. And considering how this woman had practically spat at him this afternoon, trusting her now hardly seemed wise.

He pushed himself up from the chair, leaning heavily on the edge of the table. “A lady such as yourself needn’t do such—such tasks.”

“You won’t escape that way, sir,” she said softly. How could a man as tall and strong as this one be so clearly terrified of her? Jon had been right when he’d called her kindhearted. Perhaps because she’d been something of a stray herself, no mongrel was ever turned from her door without a plate of scraps. She’d always been tender that way, and she doubted she could ever bring herself to harm any creature, beast or man, enemy or not.

Yet even so, the hazy reality of what he was to her pricked uneasily at her conscience. Was she being kind to him only because he was a man in sore need of her help, or in spite of it?

Anthony thought of the long retreat from Lexington to Charlestown, when he first learned that the people they’d come to protect didn’t want protecting. The rebel marksmen had stayed hidden in houses and behind walls, like the one who’d fired at him tonight, and like that unseen man, the Massachusetts rebels had almost always found their mark. His regiment had formed the rear guard of the retreat, and over the musket fire and screams of the wounded and dying he had shouted at his men until he was hoarse, to hold their lines steady, to reload, to fire, to be brave.

But by the time they reached Charlestown, more than two hundred British soldiers had been wounded or killed outright, and those marked as missing, those left behind, had found no mercy at all at the hands of the enemy, even hands that seemed as gentle as Catharine Hazard’s. Better to leave now, to find Routt. Aye, Routt he could trust.

“Mrs. Hazard,” he protested weakly, trying to rise. “Please, ma’am, I’d prefer—”

But at once he began to sway, and barely in time Catie grabbed his uninjured arm to guide him back down into the chair.

“I’ve tended far more grievous efforts than your piddling little scrape, Major Sparhawk,” she said, with more gentleness than she’d intended. With his handsome uniform disheveled and stained with blood and his face taut with pain, he bore little enough resemblance to the proud, haughty officer who’d belittled her hospitality earlier. “You’re hardly the first gentleman that’s sat there begging to keep his sins secret. When a woman runs a tavern, sir, there’s nothing she won’t see.”

“Nothing?” His upper lip beaded with sweat, Anthony smiled faintly, mortified by his own weakness. “I thought this was a respectable house.”

“It is,” she said promptly as she rolled up her cuffs. Though she knew he was only half listening, she continued talking, hoping that it would help take his mind off the pain. “You won’t find any more genteel than Hazard’s in all Newport County. But the better-bred the custom, the greater the mischief. Gentlemen are always getting into scrapes of one sort or another beneath my roof, and then begging me to keep the scandal down. And I do. Can you take off your coat yourself, sir, or shall I help you?”

She would have bet the tavern that he’d do it himself, and he did, working so hard to master the pain that by the time he’d finally eased the tattered sleeve from his wounded arm, she was certain he was going to faint. Most men she’d known would have. But he didn’t, and grudgingly she gave him credit for being able to back up his bravado.

“Now, this sorry rag I will leave to your man to put to rights,” she said as she took the blood-soaked coat from him.

With his face rigid with hard-won control, all Anthony could do was nod.

“Then what can I fetch you from the bar? We’ve brandy, sack, canary, whiskey, peary—”

“Rum.” The single word came out as a harsh growl, and Catie realized that his fainting was still a definite possibility. She hurried to the taproom, filled a tankard with more rum than water, and put it into his hand. “There you are, the best Rhode Island rum there is. At least your taste’s still Yankee even if your colors aren’t.”

He closed his eyes and drank deeply, and while he did, Catie ripped away the linen of his shirt’s sleeve. The ball had gone straight through his arm, and though the swelling and bruising made for a hideous-looking wound on both sides, it did not take her long to clean and cover it with an oiled poultice to help drain away the poisons.

Though the rum was strong and she worked as swiftly as she could, she knew she’d hurt him further. There wasn’t any way to avoid it. Yet not once had he cried out or complained, his only sign of pain the way his fingers whitened around the tankard of rum.

“You’re a fortunate man,” she said softly as she wrapped a linen bandage around and around his arm. “Another inch to the side, and the ball would have struck the bone.”

He sighed—an exhausted, drawn-out exhalation— now that the worst was past. “Another eight inches, and it would have found my heart. I’ll warrant that’s where the bastard was aiming, and lucky I was that my horse shied when he did.”

Automatically Catie’s glance shifted to the broad expanse of his chest, trying to imagine the heart beneath it stilled forever. For the first time, she noticed the little silver circle, unlike any official medal or badge she’d seen, pinned to the breast of his waistcoat.

“What is that?” she asked curiously. “I’d say it was perilously close to a stout Yankee eagle, save that it’s worn on a British uniform.”

“Yankee, yes, but a hawk, not an eagle.” He took another long drink from the tankard, grateful for the way the rum eased the pain. “It’s the Sparhawk mark that my grandfather used on all his dealings with the Indians. He gave the pin to me when I was a boy, and I’ve kept it since as a kind of charm. Not that it brought me much luck this night.”

“Oh, but it has,” said Catie quickly. “Think of how close this shot came to being mortal!”

“You believe in degrees of luck, then?” he asked wryly. “Too bad I was shot, but at least I wasn’t killed outright?”

He looked at her over the rim of the tankard. Now that the task of cleaning the wound was done, she was once again achingly aware of him as the man who had haunted her thoughts and dreams for so many years. But reality was so different from dreams: reality was the curling gold hair on the muscled forearm that rested so close to hers, reality was the stubble of beard above the lips that had once kissed hers, reality was the blood-spattered uniform that made him her enemy.

“You were riding when you were struck?” she asked, striving to turn her thoughts back to where they belonged. At least this might be something that would interest Jon.

He sighed ruefully, rubbing his palm across his forehead. “What an easy mark I must have been, too, there in the moonlight with the sea around me. I was south of the town, near a place called Damaris Point. Or so it was called once. Do you know it?”

She nodded, her throat constricting. Of course she knew it. Damaris Point was Sparhawk land, land that Jon would know even better. Could Jon have done this, then, aimed and shot to kill his own cousin?

Not his cousin, but a Tory officer. Not another Sparhawk, but the enemy. Remember that, Catie, remember, or else you’ll be lost once again!

“Ah, forgive me, Mrs. Hazard,” he said softly, misunderstanding her silence. “I forget myself. Of course you’d know Damaris Point. A good tavernkeep knows everything, doesn’t she? All the better to advise her guests, even the ones who don’t wish to be advised.”

Swiftly she turned away, busying herself with washing her hands. “You’re not forgetting yourself, Major, as much as speaking nonsense.”

“It wasn’t nonsense when you told me about my uncle,” he said. “I didn’t believe you, perhaps because I didn’t want to. But you were indeed right about his…his allegiances. I wonder, Mrs. Hazard, did you laugh at me behind my back as I left for the general’s headquarters?”

“Oh, no,” she said, remembering how she’d watched him leave, with Belinda’s picture clasped tight in her fingers. “However could I laugh at such a thing?”

“No?” He turned his head to look at her, his green eyes searching and his expression quizzical, and she almost gasped aloud. That expression, the angle of his jaw as he leaned his head to one side to study her, even the small hint of a smile that curved the corners of his mouth—all of it was so much like her dear little daughter that she could have wept.

No, Catie, not your daughter alone. His daughter, too, the daughter you made together…

“No,” she said, as firmly as she could. She pushed her stool away from him and rose, bundling the soiled linen in her hands. “You need your rest, Major. Shall I fetch Mr. Routt now to help you up the stairs to your room?”

“Stay a moment,” said Anthony softly, and before she could pull away he had covered her hand with his own. Such a little hand, he thought, for all the work it must do. She didn’t look like the stern tavernkeeper now, not with her pale eyes so full of sadness. What could make her so unhappy? Had she a lover fighting far from home, or was this still grief for her husband? In all the years he was a soldier, he’d never stayed in one place long enough for any woman to mourn his leaving with genuine regret. What would that be like, to have a woman like this one waiting and worrying for him?

She tugged her hand free, curling it against the other as if to protect it. From him, he thought grimly, from him, and wisely, too. He was here beneath her roof expressly to betray her, and he couldn’t have sworn that she wouldn’t do the same to him.

“It’s late, Major Sparhawk,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she restlessly fingered the heart-shaped locket. “You should rest.”

“Am I not permitted, then, to thank you for what you’ve done?”

She bent to bury the coals in the fireplace for the night, her face in profile against the glow of the dying fire, and once again he tried to think of where he’d known her before.

“I told you, sir, what I’ve done for you I’ve done for many others, as well. I’ve looked to your wound the best I can, but you must still guard against a fever or putrid discharge.”

He smiled, as much to himself as to her, as he accepted her rebuff. “You sound more like a surgeon than a tavernkeeper.”

“A good hostess must be many things to prosper,” she said, her expression carefully composed as she turned toward him again with the black iron shovel still in her hands. “If there’s nothing else you wish from me, sir, I’ll bid you good-night and fetch your Mr. Routt.”

His smile faded. “No, ma’am, that is all,” he said softly. “That is all.”

Chapter Four

Catie pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, the cold air hitting her face as soon as she stepped out the kitchen door. In these short days of December, dawn was still a good two hours away, and the courtyard remained every bit as dark as it had been at midnight. She knelt to set the wooden trencher down, gently rapping it three times on the paving stones, the way she did every morning. But before the second tap the cats had already begun to appear, quick gray and black shadows racing toward the dish of scraps.

“There now, you greedy kits, there’s enough for everyone,” she scolded fondly as two of the cats tussled over a piece of turkey skin. “Don’t I always see that there’s plenty?”

She smiled wistfully, imagining how Belinda would have insisted on true justice, swatting the quarreling pair apart with a broom and awarding the turkey to a third, meeker cat instead. Fairness was very important to Belinda’s eight-year-old idea of how the world should be, almost as important as rising so early every morning to be here at her mother’s side.

Every morning, that is, until this week, thought Catie wretchedly. Nothing fair about that, or this war, either.

“You’ll be singin’ a different tune before this winter’s out, mistress, see if you won’t,” grumbled Hannah behind her, thumping a heavy iron kettle for emphasis. “You won’t be tossin’ good food out for those wicked beasts once all them filthy lobsterbacks pick this poor island clean.”

“And I say the British will be gone long before that happens,” said Catie as she came back inside. “Why should they stay? There’s no other army here for them to fight, and no American ships will be foolish enough to wander into a harbor full of British frigates. I say they’ll stay here only long enough to boast that they’ve conquered us properly, and then they’ll be off to fight somewhere else.”

Hannah scowled and shook her head, unconvinced. “Beggin’ pardon, mistress, but them soldiers are a mean, ugly lot o’ men, an’ I can see ‘em stayin’ here forever, just to be contrary.”

“Well then, Hannah, I’ll pray that you’re wrong and that I am right.” Though hadn’t she already done exactly that all this long sleepless night, praying that one red-coated officer in particular would leave? With a sigh, Catie pulled the hood of her cloak over her cap and looped the covered basket with the jam cakes over her arm. “If anyone asks for me, Hannah, you haven’t the faintest notion where I’ve gone.”

“But I do, mistress.” The cook’s scowl deepened into a frown of unhappy concern. “Anyone who knows you can guess you’re off t’see Belinda. Them jam cakes only make it certain.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Catie, “and I’ve no intention of telling you any more, one way or the other. That way, you can answer truthfully if you’re asked.”

Briskly she pulled on her mittens, hoping the gesture would mask the dismay she felt. Was she really so dreadfully transparent? Three days ago she’d been determined not to risk visiting her daughter for a fortnight, or at least until the situation here in town was more settled. But then, that had been before Anthony walked through that door, needing her help, needing her—

No. He had not sought her, nor had he wanted her assistance. She was the one who hadn’t been able to resist forcing her care, her concern, upon him. And he wasn’t Anthony. He was Major Sparhawk, a Tory officer cantoned in her home, an enemy she’d promised to spy upon. The sooner she remembered that and forgot everything else, the better for her, and Belinda, too.

She gave her head a little toss, trying to shake away the shameful memory. “You’ll have to make do with what we have in the cellar, Hannah, at least until the market opens again. Not that we’ll have that many guests—paying guests—at table. Still, I’ve every intention of returning to greet them all at dinner, and so you may tell them if they ask.”

But Hannah refused to let Catie change the subject. “I do wish you’d be takin’ one o’ the lads from the stable with you, mistress. The notion o’ a lady like you alone in the street with all them soldiers—well, it chills me t’ the quick. At least a pistol, mistress. Take one o’ the master’s old guns to protect yourself.”

“Oh, yes, and shoot myself for good measure. All the king’s men would quiver with terror at the sight of me with a gun, that’s for certain.” Catie smiled grimly. “This is my town, Hannah, my home, and my life, and none of it is King George’s affair. I refuse to let myself be cowed into hiding by a great pack of bullying Tories.”

Brave, patriotic words indeed, thought Catie proudly as she closed the door after her. But with each hurried step through the dark, deserted town, the bravery evaporated and the patriotic words faded into no more than an empty bluff as her heart pounded and her hands grew damp inside her mittens.

Patriot or not, she wasn’t a complete fool. She knew what she was doing was impulsive at best, sliding down the scale to out-and-out dangerous. She kept to the narrower side streets and hugged the edges of the houses and shops, where her footsteps would make less sound than on the paving stones, sometimes so close to the walls that her skirts brushed the clapboards and snagged against the bricks. Twice she heard men’s voices and a clanking of muskets that she guessed belonged to the British sentries, and both times she managed to dart through alleyways to avoid them.

By the time she finally reached the edge of town, dawn was a pale glow through the bare trees on the horizon, and Catie quickened her steps with a sigh of relief, glad to be rid of Newport. The little gossip she’d heard said that the British troops were concentrated in the town and around the harbor, and that they weren’t bothering with the more isolated farms scattered across the island.

But to be certain, she decided to leave the road and cut across the fields instead, and with her skirts bunched in one hand and the basket in the other, she climbed over the low stone wall that marked the boundary of the Arnold farm. The stubbled grass glistened with the heavy frost, crunching brittle beneath her feet as she cut out across the empty fields.

When at last she saw the smoke curling from the old stone chimney of the Pipers’ house, the sun had risen and stretched into a lemon-colored band across the pale winter sky. Catie’s fingers and toes were numb from the cold and her cheeks stung with it, but she was nearly running the final steps through the orchard, almost desperately eager to see her daughter again.

To her joy, Belinda was outside, helping Abigail Piper draw a bucket of water from the well. Catie called her name, and the little girl’s head rose at once, her face was so bright with the same excitement that Catie herself felt that she could have wept with joy. Only three days they’d been apart, but that was three days longer than they’d ever been separated before.

“Belinda, here!” she shouted, dropping the basket to the grass to wave her hands. “I’m over here!”

Without another glance at Abigail, Belinda began to run to Catie, her skirts flying high around her legs and her white linen cap falling back from her hair. She threw herself into Catie’s outstretched arms like a small, wriggling puppy, linking her arms tightly around her mother’s waist and burying her face against her breasts.

“Oh, Mama, you said you’d come, and you did!” she cried, her words tumbling over themselves with happiness. “Mrs. Piper said you wouldn’t, not for a fortnight at least, but I knew you wouldn’t leave me that long, and you didn’t! You didn’t!”

She shoved herself back, impatiently shaking her hair back from her face. “You have been feeding the cats, Mama, haven’t you?” she asked, her heart-shaped face turning serious. “You made certain the little ones got their share, too? The Pipers have cats here in the barn, but they’re so fat from mice that they pay no mind at all to the scraps I bring them.”

“Of course I feed them,” said Catie promptly. “I even give them extra to make up for their disappointment at not seeing you. Hannah scolded me for it.”

“Well, good.” Belinda beamed. “I mean to make Hannah cross at me, too, starting first thing tomorrow morning. Now I’ll go fetch my things from the house so we can leave.”

“Belinda, sweet, wait a moment.”

“Why should I?” The girl’s smile widened to show the gap where she’d lost her last baby tooth. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be home. You’ll see, Mama, I kept everything neat in the bag, all folded tidy and neat, the way you did. I wouldn’t take anything out, even though Mrs. Piper said I should, because I knew I’d only have to put it back when you came for me.”

“Oh, Belinda,” murmured Catie, her heart sinking. “We must talk.”

How could she tell her the danger wasn’t past, that she’d only come to visit? Gently she reached out and took the girl’s rough little hand, smoothing back a lock of Belinda’s hair. Her daughter’s hair was so different from Catie’s own, not fine and silvery, but thick and gold and full of sunshine.

Her father’s hair, thought Catie wretchedly. Her father’s hair, and his green eyes, with their impossibly long lashes, and the same bowed curve of his smile, too, all of it unmistakably Anthony’s. Lord, was it only her shame that made her find his mark everywhere on her daughter’s innocent face, or would others see the resemblance, too?

“I can’t take you home, lamb,” she said as gently as she could. “Not just yet, though I promise—”

“But why not, Mama?” cried Belinda, stunned enough that her voice squeaked upward. “You said it wouldn’t be long. You said I’d only have to stay here until Newport was safe again!”

“And it’s still not, Belinda, not yet,” said Catie hurriedly, hating herself for the pain she saw in her daughter’s eyes. “You’re much better off here with the Pipers, away from all the trouble in town.”

“But I don’t care, Mama,” said Belinda urgently. She was trying so hard to be brave and not cry, her fingers clutching around Catie’s. “I don’t care about the Pipers and I don’t care about the trouble. I want to go with you. I want to go home!”

Catie sighed unhappily. “I’m sorry, love, but I can’t take you just yet. You’re much safer here. The town’s too full of redcoats, hundreds and hundreds of them, plus Hessians—Germans—besides. Why, there’s even a good score of Britishers in our own house, thumping up and down the front stairs as if it’s their private parade ground.”

But Belinda scarcely heard her, her face crumpling with fear and disappointment and resentment, too, as she jerked her hand away from Catie. “You don’t care what happens to me, not really! You say you want to keep me away from the soldiers, but there’s been soldiers here, too, bunches of them, and you don’t even care!”

Catie looked at her sharply. “Soldiers here, Belinda? When?”

“Yesterday noon, Mrs. Hazard.” Abigail Piper joined them, the musket slung across her back in grim counterpoint to her welcoming smile. The Pipers had three sons serving in the south with General Greene. Abigail often vowed she would have gone for a soldier herself if Owen would let her, and somehow Catie didn’t doubt it. “A whole party of the nasty devils came poking about.”

“Oh, Belinda, forgive me, I didn’t know.” Gently Catie drew her daughter back into her arms, and with a little sigh Belinda pressed her head against Catie’s side.

“She was safe enough, Mrs. Hazard,” said Abigail, shifting the musket butt from her shoulder to the ground, leaning on the long barrel like a staff. “And brave as can be into the bargain. We were both sick abed and powerfully ill, weren’t we, Belinda?”

Catie frowned, slipping her hand beneath Belinda’s chin to feel if she was warm. “Ill?”

“We were only playing, Mama.” Belinda sniffed loudly, and she smiled in spite of herself. “When the redcoats tried to come into the house, Mr. Piper told them that Mrs. Piper and me were sick.”

Abigail chuckled. “Nothing an army fears more than a good dose of smallpox sweeping through the camp,” she said cheerfully. “Owen met them at the door, all harried and long-faced, while Belinda and I lay beneath the coverlets upstairs and moaned as if our last hour had come. We had our faces all dabbed with flour-paste sores, too, in case they dared come peek. Not that they did. Lord, you should have seen them turn tail and run, Mrs. Hazard!”

“But they could come back.” Protectively Catie tightened her arms around Belinda. The Pipers’ ruse had been a clever one, more clever than any she’d have invented herself—in peacetime the Pipers had been smugglers, accustomed to outwitting the authorities, which was one of the reasons Catie had trusted Belinda to them in the first place—but still she couldn’t help half considering taking Belinda back with her to Newport after all.

“Nay, they won’t come back, not once the word goes round their camp,” declared Abigail. “You’ll see. The pox is better than a score of muskets.”

Yet her smile faded. “But you, Mrs. Hazard. Coming out here all by yourself—that wasn’t wise, ma’am, ‘specially not if things are as bad in town as we heard. Don’t want to consider what those redcoats might do to a lady like yourself.”

Catie felt how Belinda shrank closer. Automatically she hugged the girl for reassurance, though she couldn’t have said which of them was the more comforted.

“I didn’t see a soul the whole way out here, Abigail,” she said, as much for her daughter’s benefit as for the other woman’s, “and I doubt I will on the walk home, either. As for us in town—true, it seems they’ve put half the infantry under my eaves, but I’ve officers staying with me, as well, and I pray those fine gentlemen with the gold lace on their coats will make their men behave.”

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