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“I am not. I would rather no one ever got sick.”
“But it gives you a great deal of importance when they do.” Daniel tore another chunk off the loaf of bread.
“That’s not true. I only want to feel useful. Someone must take care of the sick.”
“I am surprised you have not hired yourself out to the hospitals.” Since this pronouncement produced a dead silence, Daniel could only think that Nancy had been performing some such service. “If that isn’t the outside of enough.” His fist hit the table. “Well, pack your bags, Miss Riley. I am about to escort you to meet your esteemed papa.”
“I will not be hauled away like a child.”
“Even if he sent for you?”
“You have seen him?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes, and he commissioned me to take you to Pittsburgh. He has bought an inn. Not much of one, but I take it he is in need of someone to manage it.”
“Manage it? Me? But what is he doing?”
“Running the still.”
“Oh, yes, of course. When do we set out?”
“Two days, if I can manage it.”
“But that is plenty of time. By then Prudence will be able to help nurse Tibby.”
“How convenient for you.” Daniel wolfed the rest of his food and retired to his room, leaving Nancy and Trueblood in the kitchen, writing out their cures for Mrs. Cook.
“Damn!” Nancy said impatiently as she stepped out of one shoe and looked back to see it mired in the crossing. She hopped precariously on one foot, holding up her plain work skirt with the hand carrying the basket as she turned and reached down to pull the shoe free without muddying her stocking. Suddenly she was scooped up by a strong pair of arms, and was just about to raise her voice in complaint when she realized it was Daniel. She did not hit him with the muddy shoe, but wrapped her arm about his neck instead.
“When I recommended these lodgings to you, I did not think you meant to hire yourself out as a servant to Mrs. Cook.”
“What on earth do you mean? I have only been helping since the maids have been ill. You can put me down now.” Nancy stared about her to see if she knew any of the pedestrians.
“If I do you will only go on about the marketing. I am taking you back to Mrs. Cook’s.”
“But that is where I was going. I was just leaving a fever medicine at the Nortons’.”
Daniel hesitated. “Is one of them ill?”
“One of the servants. Your friend has sent Elise and the girls to his plantation. He even offered to send me there for a visit.”
“Which you declined in your high-handed way, I suppose.” Daniel continued carrying her along the pathway, oblivious to stares from what few people still dared walk the streets.
“I wish you would put me down, Daniel,” Nancy said, but without conviction. “You are causing a spectacle.”
“Nothing like the spectacle of you exposing yourself up to the knee to fetch that shoe out of the mud.”
“A gentleman would not have looked.”
“Any man would have looked, even one staggering about with the fever.”
“But what will people think?” Nancy asked, blushing at the backhanded compliment.
“That you have sprained your ankle. At least that is the story I suggest, but you are so inventive I am sure you can come up with something better.”
They were within a block of home, so she left off arguing and thought about the strong arms under her thighs and around her back. “Norton seemed surprised you had not been to see him yet,” she taunted.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much, just raised one eyebrow in that way he has of indicating he cannot quite credit his senses.”
“I was on my way to see him now. I shall tell him you detained me.”
“I do not think that will surprise him,” Nancy said, somewhat gratified that Daniel thought her safety of more moment than reporting to Norton.
“What? Bye the bye, are you packed yet?”
“Daniel, I am always packed.”
“Yes, if the British attacked, you would be the only one poised to embark on a war. Here we are at Mrs. Cook’s. See that you are ready to leave on a moment’s notice.”
“Well, Daniel?” Norton asked a half hour later as Daniel stood brooding over a small glass of brandy.
“You sound like Trueblood.”
“That sounds like an accusation. I did not look for you for a week yet.”
“I got back late yesterday.”
“Rough trip?”
“Did you get any of my letters?”
“One. I swear, you may as well carry the mail. You do about as well as the post riders sometimes.”
“I dislike sending information that way.”
“You worry too much. It would never occur to the backwoods rabble that they have a spy among them. What pompous nonsense are they about now?”
“Well, they’ve burned one of the tax collectors,” Daniel said.
“What?”
“In effigy, that is.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Norton asked.
“Every inn and tavern is rife with talk of rebellion,” Daniel added.
“Then an insurrection is imminent.”
“Not immediately, and perhaps not at all, if something could be done to lessen the severity of the tax.”
“Quickly, you mean? Not likely. Most of the representatives have fled. The government is scattered from here to Virginia.”
“The president?”
“Will not leave, for the moment. It is the only thing preventing a mass exodus from the city.”
“Washington must be able to do something.”
“The law is the law. He cannot give any dispensations, even if he would. And the debts must be paid. Speaking of pay, when is the last time you had any money for your services?”
“I do not recall, but it does not matter. I never did it for that.”
“I have never been quite sure why you do it, Daniel. I am only glad that you do.”
“If only they had increased the taxes on imports it would have hit these rich city merchants in the purse, not the poor wretches on the frontier. They have nothing but the bit of whiskey they make. To tax it is inhuman, especially for the small producers.”
“Compassion for the enemy, Daniel? That is likely to get you killed.”
“They are not the enemy. They are our countrymen. Whether they remain so is another matter.”
“You have found something.”
“You remember us speaking of Dupree?”
“Yes.”
“He has met with Bradford—twice, to my knowledge.”
“Is Bradford in the pay of the French?”
“If he is they have most likely offered him something else.”
“What?”
“Possibly governorship of the area, once it is no longer part of America.”
“Do they mean to send troops?”
“I believe they mean to make the insurgents do all the killing themselves…and the dying.”
“Why do they need France then?”
“They do not, but they do not realize that. I am wondering if there are other Duprees at work up and down the length of the frontier.”
“Other than Michaux, the botanist, you mean? Do we have time to find out?”
“I suppose Trueblood and I could scour the frontier.”
“That would take too long. I think it a better use of your time to keep your finger on the pulse of Pittsburgh and surroundings, but I do not like to run you ragged going back and forth. Are you sure you cannot trust your dispatches to the mail?”
“I am taking Trueblood with me this time. One or the other of us can bring news.”
“Why did you not take him with you last time?”
“I had work for him here.”
“More important work than this?” Norton raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Daniel opened his mouth to protest that his brother no longer worked for the government, but Norton waved a hand and said, “Do not explain. I have a feeling I know what you are going to say. Spare me.”
Nancy pulled the candle across the large kitchen table and reread the letter from her aunt, who urged her, at the slightest inconvenience, to use the money her uncle had given her to book passage on the next returning ship. Nancy only hoped that Aunt Jane never found out that her ship had been captured by a privateer and that she had been nursing yellow-fever victims. A fine adventure and some useful experience, but aunts never saw such things that way. England was so far away. With any luck, they would never hear about the plague. Nancy sharpened her pen and composed her mind to write a comforting last letter before she began her journey to Pittsburgh.
Dear Aunt Jane,
You talk as though this is a wilderness. I assure you Philadelphia is quite civilized. Why, they even have hospitals here. And I have been to the theater and any number of other entertainments. I even dined with the French ambassador, and he kissed my hand. But enough of my society fling.
Tomorrow we set out for Pittsburgh, the roughness of which I am sure has been exaggerated. I have heard there are nearly two hundred houses there. Surely there are genteel folk among them. You need not worry about the journey. I travel under the protection of a family of merchants Papa and I met on the ship. What could be more fortuitous than that they run a regular trade with Pittsburgh? Papa has gone ahead and bought us a quaint inn. I can scarcely wait to see it. I will write you from my new home, unless there is an opportunity to mail a letter along the way.
With all my love,
Nancy
Chapter Four (#ulink_7786584f-67d8-5554-977a-6d33913f51d6)
Nancy stared at Trueblood’s costume one more time, for that is what it seemed to be. Daniel was dressed in a rough coat and breeches with serviceable riding boots and sat his lean horse like a soldier, but his brother had donned a leather hunting shirt, which looked like it would be uncomfortably hot later in the day. Trueblood’s breechcloth and leather leggings left a large expanse of hip and thigh exposed. His loincloth looked so much like the garment worn by women when they had their courses she could not help but regard it as indecent. Trueblood must have read something of her thoughts, for he smiled wickedly at her and basked in the stares of all the other women who passed the warehouse on their way to market. It was so unlike Trueblood that Nancy was on the point of demanding what he thought he was about when she remembered what she was going to ask Daniel and kneed her young mare to bring it up to Daniel’s mount.
Daniel watched Nancy’s approach with foreboding. He had been pleased to see that Trueblood had gotten her and her gear to the warehouse in good time. Moreover, her trunks had been got rid of in favor of somewhat more watertight saddle packs, and she seemed to be having no difficulty riding astride. She wore a leather hat, a thick linen skirt and a sturdy jacket and, it appeared, meant to lead her own pack animal. That would not last, but Daniel decided not to quibble over it. What worried him was the determined look on her face, and he could not be sure Trueblood’s outrageous attire would distract her from whatever rub she meant to throw in the path of their departure.
“I forgot to ask. Did my father offer to pay you?”
“Why should he pay me?” Daniel asked. “The job is not done yet.”
“Then I will pay you.”
“Certainly not,” he snapped, then bit back his anger when he saw her raise her chin.
“I do have money of my own.”
“I am sure you—very well. You may hire us as guards.”
“What is your price?”
“A shilling.”
“Is that all my life is worth to you?”
