Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution by Suzanne Adair Read Free Book Online Page B

She inverted the order of letters.   More gibberish.
    Ensign Baldwin
knocked on her door.   "Mrs. Barton,
your brother has arrived.   Shall I admit
him?"
    She sprang up
and yanked open the door.   "Yes,
straight away."   David trod
upstairs, and she motioned him inside.
    He shut the
door and sat on her bed.   "News of
your arrest is all over town.   What the
deuce is going on?"
    "I shall
be jailed on the morrow if I don't decipher this ."   After showing him the cipher, she summarized
the past twelve hours and finished with, "Did you see the broadside?"
    "Oh, yes,
posted around Alton this morning, so townsfolk have seen it, too.   Despite efforts to hush the affair, the
broadside keeps reappearing.   No one can
catch the perpetrators."
    "What did
you think of the broadside?"
    "Definitely
not MacVie's best artwork."   With a
beguiling smile, he dodged her swipe at him.   "Seriously, the full story has emerged from the Waxhaws incident.   Colonel Buford invited massacre upon his men
— first by refusing to surrender, then by continuing to fight after raising the
white flag."
    "The
fool."
    "No
greater fool than Colonel Tarleton, who allowed his soldiers to hack men to
pieces.   Sanity has fled both
sides.   Your arrest confirms fears of
Loyalists that the redcoats prey on their own.   It also confirms the convictions of rebels that everyone's a
patriot."
    She grimaced at
the implication.   "I don't fit the
profile for a heroine.   I complain far
too much."
    "True, but
you could still end up being a martyr."
    They locked
gazes, and a rare furrow appeared between his eyebrows, sign that he'd leaped
from the happy-go-lucky wagon of his life into the carriage of concern.   A lump formed in her throat before she rose
and fumbled through papers on her desk.   "So tell me, what do you make of this?"
    He shrugged at
the numbers.   "The old man is in
over his head.   Sit in his room
awhile.   Let him tell you what it
means."
    "I cannot
decipher it.   I shall be jailed on the
morrow."
    The furrow
between his eyebrows deepened, and he stared through her.   "Jailed?   I've a hunch not."
    Baldwin rapped
on her door.   "Your ten minutes are
up, Mr. St. James."
    "A hunch,
you say?" she whispered.
    David rose, and
the furrow disappeared, replaced with his familiar complacency.   "A feeling I get when the cards are
right.   Players around the table
change.   Captain John Sheffield and
Lieutenant Michael Stoddard arrived in town this morning.   Hunt will be returning to England, and
Fairfax will be transferred to the Seventeenth Light in South
Carolina."   He hugged her.   "So chin up.   You'll triumph."
    ***
    She ate dinner
in the dining room while pondering the change in the garrison's command.   Back up in her room, she paced and tried
more decoding schemes, but they resulted in gibberish.   She kept wondering whether Captain Sheffield
would dispense with house arrest and jail her after Edward left town.
    Her patience
grown short, her bedroom grown warm, she leaned out the window for a view of
the town.   Goats roamed loose pilfering
neighbors' garden greens, and chickens flitted out of the way of two boys
running a hoop in the dirt street.   Wood
smoke dulled the sky.   Years of sun and
rain had bleached the wood buildings to a uniform gray.   How drab Alton looked.   She pulled back inside and sat on the
bed.   Was Hampshire more colorful?   Not that she need waste time wondering, for
surely Edward's offer had become void.
    Conversation in
the shop preceded the tramp of boots up the stairs, a rap on her door, and an
unfamiliar man's voice.   "Mrs.
Barton, I must speak with you."   Shoulders
squared, she opened the door to a dark-haired British lieutenant in his
mid-twenties, mild-featured despite a cluster of pimples on his chin.   He stood at attention, looking beyond her.   "Lieutenant Stoddard at your service,
madam.   I regret to inform you that your
father met with foul play, we believe