“I am friends with his wife,” she answered.
“Then you know he’s been missing.”
“Oh, he told me he was in New York,” she said. “But perhaps I ought not to have said as much. I was under the impression he did not wish people to know it.”
“Then he has been thwarted. How sad for him.”
She laughed. “I enjoy my pettiness with a dose of wit. You do not like him?”
“I love wit and may endure pettiness, but he strikes me as cruel, which I cannot abide,” I answered.
“I think perhaps you know his wife from many years ago too.” From another person this might have seemed impertinent beyond endurance, but there was something so clever and endearing in how she spoke these words that it doused all impropriety.
“She and I are old friends.” I turned to look at this beauty full on, and she met my gaze most boldly. Here, I thought, might be an agreeable consolation to my confusion with Cynthia. “Do you live in Philadelphia, Mrs. Maycott?”
“I live here, though I travel much.”
“You enjoy travel-with Mr. Maycott, perhaps?”
She looked directly into my eyes once more, as though leveling an accusation. “Sir, Mr. Maycott is dead.”
“I am sorry for that, madam.”
“That is merely something one says.”
“Mrs. Maycott,” I said, to my strange interlocutor, “I cannot help but feel you believe we have met before, or that you expect me to have some knowledge of your circumstances.”
“I don’t believe you do, sir. Mr. Duer tells me, however, that you inquire into Jacob Pearson’s business, and that you do it for Hamilton. Is that so?”
I did not pause. I did not wait so much as an instant, for I would not show surprise that she had previously spoken of me or knew anything of my business. I would act as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “You know Mr. Duer?”
“There are so many here,” she answered. “One may meet everyone. But I must ask you, as there is much consternation about Hamilton ’s policies: Are you an enthusiast of his?”
“I do not work for or with Hamilton, though my interests may be intersecting with his.”
“Tell me, Captain. Have you any thoughts on the whiskey excise?”
“I am no friend to excise taxes,” I said, keeping all inflection from my voice. Nevertheless, I set down my glass on a nearby table and scanned the room for Lavien. Pearson’s disappearance and the whiskey tax were bound together-there could be no doubt of it, not when my inquiry into the matter had faced opposition from the hairless western giant, the man with superior whiskey as his calling card. I did not know if therein lay the link to the threat against the bank, but I hardly cared about the threat against the bank. I only cared that this woman appeared to be telling me that she had some knowledge of Pearson’s disappearance and thus a connection to Cynthia’s safety.
“I believe we have much in common, sir,” she said. “We are both caught up in events larger than ourselves, and we must make choices that we sometimes find unsavory if we are to do what is right.”
I attempted a smile. “What events are you involved in, madam?”
She leaned closer. “I cannot speak of them now. Not here. It is too soon and too public.” She gazed across the room and, indeed, William Duer was looking at us most pointedly. “Would you be willing to meet with me again, sir? Have I given you sufficient reason to do so?”
“A man need never look too hard to find a reason to meet with a pretty lady.”
“I do not know that I am vulnerable to flattery,” she said, not unkindly.
“Shall we make an effort to find out?” I asked.
“That sounds most delightful.”
“When shall we talk again?”
“Have you an engagement for two nights hence?”
I bowed. “I am yours to command.”
“I am so pleased.” Coming toward us once more was Jacob Pearson, now alone, Cynthia being across the room speaking with the beautiful Mrs. Bingham. Mrs. Maycott reached out and grabbed Pearson’s wrist. “Mr. Pearson, would it be an imposition if I bring a dear friend to dinner the night after next?”
He looked at me and was unable to contain his surprise, but then seemed to recollect himself, or perhaps Mrs. Maycott. “You may, of course, bring anyone you like. Unless it is this man here. I cannot like him.”
“Such wit,” she said. “Certainly it is Captain Saunders. We both look forward to the evening.” Mrs. Maycott paused not a moment, but took my arm and led me away. “You see, nothing is more easily effected.”
“I am not certain I will be made to feel welcome,” I said.
“And I am not sure either of us cares. I, however, will have the pleasure of offering consternation to a man I do not like, and you will have the opportunity to pry further into his business. We shall both, in the end, be made happy.”
Joan Maycott
Spring 1791
There were days lost. I do not apologize for that weakness, though when some remnant of clarity returned to me, when I escaped the deepest fog of grief, I vowed I would never again give in to such madness, not on any account. They were days when my enemies ate and slept and prospered and advanced their goals, while I did nothing, and in doing nothing I aided them, for that is how it is when faced with evil men. One must either resist or, in varying degrees, collaborate.
The day after he was murdered, we interred Andrew in the churchyard. Several men from the settlement unceremoniously hauled Hendry’s body to town and dumped it in the mud of Pittsburgh, as it deserved. I took no pleasure in the contrast. After Andrew’s funeral, my friends guided me to the isolated hunting cabin shared by the men of the settlement. They told me it was important not to remain in my own home, that it had been damaged, though not destroyed, in the fire. I was too lost in my own confusion to inquire of the details.
At first my grief was so great I was like a woman sleeping with her eyes open, seeing all about me, understanding none of it. Then at last, after some days, I began to emerge from this first numb stage of grief, though what came next was worse by far, for I understood the enormity of what had been wrenched from me. I had lost my Andrew, I had lost our child, I had lost my work, my home, my purpose. In this whole universe, nothing was left that meant anything to me. It was as though some great hand had come and wiped away all that had ever given me cause to take a breath.
I could do little more than weep and clutch my knees to my chest and lament. Mr. Dalton and Mr. Skye, for reasons I did not yet understand, spent long periods of time in the hunting cabin. When not out in search of game, the Irishman stomped about the cabin in a rage, swearing vengeance, clenching his fists, ripping off bites of his tobacco twist as though he could rip off Tindall’s flesh by doing so. Mr. Skye, in his far more subdued manner, sat by my side. He made perpetual efforts to feed me venison broth and bits of buttered corn bread, and it was by his efforts that I did not starve.
When Mr. Skye grew too tired or restless to tend to me, Jericho Richmond sat in his place. I took comfort in his silent company, yet there was a darkness in his gaze too. His brooding wood-colored eyes hung on me-in pity, yes, but something else.
Once I turned to him and said, “I am dead now. I have lost everything.”
“You are not dead,” he said. “But you are different.”
I looked away, for I did not wish to hear more.
“Be mindful of it,” he said. “You have sway over these men.”
I had no wish to be careful or thoughtful or anything else, and after he spoke these words I found I did not love Mr. Richmond’s company. It was Mr. Skye who proved my most attendant nurse. I welcomed his presence but refused, at first, his ministrations. I would shake my head and push away his spoon when he tried to feed me. Oh, I was cruel to him. I called him names, a withered old man who knew nothing of what I had lost. Unlike him, I could not simply sail to distant shores when my life lay in ruins. I felt nothing but regret and self-hatred even as I spoke the words, yet I could not stop them, and so I only wept more. Mr. Skye, that good man, nodded in understanding and offered me another spoonful of soup. In the end, I ate.