“Speculating in what?” I asked, folding the letter. I remembered Peggy, all right: an eighteen-year-old girl, beautiful and knowing it, flaunting herself before the thirty-eight-year-old general like a trout fly. “I can see why he’d marry her—but why on earth would she want to marry him?” Benedict Arnold had considerable charm and animal magnetism, but he also had one leg shorter than the other and—to the best of my knowledge—neither property nor money.
Jamie gave me a patient look.
“He’s the military governor of Philadelphia, for one thing. And her family are Tories. Ye ken what the Sons of Liberty did to her cousin—maybe she’s thinking she’d rather they didna come back and burn her father’s house over her head.”
“You have a point.” The night breeze was beginning to chill me through my damp shift, and I shivered. “Give me that shawl, will you?”
“As for what Arnold’s speculating in,” Jamie added, wrapping the shawl round my shoulders, “it could be anything. Most of the city will be for sale, should the price be right.”
I nodded, looking out at the night, which spread its velvet cloak around us—momentarily spangled by a shower of sparks that shot out of the chimney on the other side of the house, fading to black before they touched down.
“I can’t stop Benedict Arnold,” I said quietly. “I couldn’t stop him, even if he was here right in front of me this minute. Could I?” I turned my head to him, appealing.
“No,” he said very softly, and took my hand. His was large and strong, but as cold as my own. “Come lie wi’ me, Sassenach. I’ll warm ye and we’ll watch the moon come down.”
SOMETIME LATER, WE lay curled together, naked in the cool night, happy in the warmth of each other’s body. The moon was coming down in the west, a sliver of silver that let the stars shine bright. The pale canvas rustled and murmured overhead, the scents of fir and oak and cypress surrounded us, and a random firefly, distracted from its business by a passing wind current, landed on the pillow by my head and sat for a moment, its abdomen pulsing with a regular cool-green light.
“Oidhche mhath, a charaid,” Jamie said to it. It waved its antennae in an amiable fashion and sailed off, circling down toward the distant flicker of its comrades on the ground.
“I wish we could keep our bedroom like this,” I said wistfully, watching its tail light disappear into the darkness below. “It’s so lovely, being part of the night.”
“Nay so much when it rains.” Jamie lifted his chin toward our canvas ceiling. “Dinna fash, though; I’ll have a solid roof on before snow flies.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said, and laughed. “Do you remember our first cabin, when it snowed and the roof leaked? You insisted on going up to fix it, in the pelting blizzard—and stark naked.”
“Well, and whose fault was that?” he inquired, though without rancor. “Ye wouldna let me go up in my shirt; what choice did I have?”
“You being you, none at all.” I rolled over and kissed him. “You taste like apple pie. Is there any left?”
“No. I’ll go down and fetch ye a bite, though.”
I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“No, don’t. I’m not really hungry and I’d rather just stay like this. Mm?”
“Mmphm.”
He rolled toward me, then scooted down the bed and lifted himself between my thighs.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, as he settled comfortably into position.
“I should think that was obvious, Sassenach.”
“But you’ve just been eating apple pie!”
“It wasna that filling.”
“That … wasn’t quite what I meant …” His thumbs were thoughtfully stroking the tops of my thighs, and his warm breath was stirring the hairs on my body in a very disturbing way.
“If ye’re afraid of crumbs, Sassenach, dinna fash—I’ll pick them off after I’ve finished. Is it baboons ye said that do that? Or was it fleas they pick?”
“I don’t have fleas” was all I could manage in the way of a witty riposte, but he laughed, settled his shoulders, and set to work.
“I like it when ye scream, Sassenach,” he murmured a little later, pausing for breath.
“There are children downstairs!” I hissed, fingers buried in his hair.
“Well, try to sound like a catamount, then …”
A LITTLE LATER, I asked, “How far is it from here to Philadelphia?”
He didn’t answer at once, but gently massaged my bottom with one hand. Finally, he said, “Ken what Roger Mac said to me once? That to an Englishman, a hundred miles is a long way; to an American, a hundred years is a long time.”
I turned my head a little, to look at him. His eyes were fixed on the sky and his face was tranquil, but I knew what he was saying.
“How long, then?” I asked quietly, and laid a hand over his heart, to feel the reassurance of its slow, strong beating. He smelled of my own musk and his, and a tremor from the last little while echoed up my spine. “How long do we have, do you think?”
“Not long, Sassenach,” he said softly. “Tonight, it’s as far away as the moon. Tomorrow it may be in the dooryard.” The hairs on his chest had risen, whether from chilly air or the conversation, and he grasped my hand, kissed it, and sat up.
“Have ye ever heard of a man called Francis Marion, Sassenach?”
I paused in the act of reaching for my shift. He’d spoken very casually, and I glanced briefly at him. He had his back turned, and the scars on it were a mesh of fine silver lines.
“I might have,” I replied, looking critically at the hem of my shift. Slightly grubby, but it would do for one more day. I pulled it over my head and reached for my stockings. “Francis Marion … Was he known as the Swamp Fox?” I had vague memories of watching a Disney show by that name, and I thought the character’s name had been something Marion …
“He isn’t yet,” Jamie said, turning to look over his shoulder at me. “What d’ye know of him?”
“Very little, and that only from a television show. Though Bree could probably still sing the theme song—er, that’s music that was played at the beginning of each … er, performance.”
“The same music each time, ye mean?” A brow cocked with interest.
“Yes. Francis Marion … I recall him being captured by a British redcoat and tied to a tree in one episode, so he probably was a …” I stopped dead.
“Now,” I said, with that odd qualm of dread and awe that always came when I ran into one of Them. First Benedict Arnold, and now … “Francis Marion is … now, you mean.”
“So Brianna says. But she didna remember much about him.”
“Why are you interested in him, particularly?”
“Ach.” He relaxed, back on firmer ground. “Have ye ever heard of a partisan band, Sassenach?”
“Not unless you mean a political party, and I’m quite sure you don’t.”
“Like Whigs and Tories? No, I don’t.” He picked up the jug of wine, poured a cup, and handed it to me. “A partisan band is much like a band o’ mercenaries, save that they mostly dinna work for money. Something like a private militia, but a good deal less orderly in its habits.”