Free The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution by Suzanne Adair Page A

cringed, recalling Fairfax's threat to loosen her
tongue.   "Do you want all this half-knowledge
tortured out of me?   Tell me enough to
protect myself and not betray you.   Let
me be your comrade and help you out of this."   She hugged him.   "I
cannot raise this child alone.   Stop
what you're doing!"
    "I tried to leave," he
muttered, "when I found out you were carrying the baby.   They won't let me go until it's over."   He wrapped his arms around her.   "It's gigantic, Betsy.   It reaches the entire length of the
Colonies, across the water, into Cuba, the Caribbean, France, Spain, and
Holland."
    "Rebels."   Her voice emerged choked, the way hope felt
in her chest.   "A spy ring.   Dear gods, you're spying for the
rebels."
    "If I walk away, I'll be
executed within days.   After my attempt
at backing out two months ago, I was marked as suspect."
    She clung to him, her head spinning
with horror and indignation.   "What
is your mission?"
    "I swore on my sacred honor
not to tell you or anyone else."
    What did fanatics who raided farms
and ravished women and girls know of sacred honor?   "When will it be over?"
    "Another six weeks.   And then I'm out, I promise."
    "Six weeks is a long
time.   The redcoats aren't stupid."
    "Yes, I know."   He disentangled himself and headed for the
desk.   "And we've a seven-hour ride
today in the company of one with a fiend's love of interrogation."   He laughed without mirth.   "I'd the good fortune to meet Mr. Fairfax
last night in the Red Rock."   He
ran his hand over his face, as if to banish memory of the encounter.   "Where are the letter and note?   I must destroy both."
    Relieved that she'd had the
prudence to forge Arriaga's letter, she withdrew the original and the boot
message from her pocket and handed them to him.   While she crawled back into bed, the quilt of despondency
settling over her, Clark ignited the note and dropped it into a metal dish on
the desk.   Arriaga's missive he first
warmed to expose the cipher and silently translate.   Then it, too, was fed to the flames.
    The bitter stink of evidence
permeated the room and shivered premonition through Betsy.   Fire, the beginning and the end.   Clark blew out the lantern, crawled into
bed, and took her in his arms.   "I'll be out by September, I promise.   Trust me."
    Did she have a choice?   Her soul writhed with foreboding over the
chasm her husband straddled between two battling Olympians: punitive parent and
recalcitrant child.   To them, the life
of one mortal named John Clark Sheridan was of no consequence.
    Chapter Eight
    NEITHER BETSY NOR Clark slept while
dawn brightened the sky.   She withheld
knowledge of the Givens murders from her husband, uncertain how to tell
him.   Perhaps he'd heard the news in the
Red Rock before coming home and hadn't mentioned it to her because he didn't
want to alarm her further.   The
possibility that he already knew of it from plans made with Spaniards made her
want to shrink from his touch.   Was
Clark capable of plotting murder?   On Monday,
she'd have scoffed at the suggestion.   But with each passing day, she'd gained greater discernment that she
didn't know the man in bed beside her at all.
    Mary rose at five-thirty and
thumped downstairs to revive the cooking fire.   When Susana arrived half an hour later, Betsy pulled from Clark's
embrace without a word and dressed.   He
did the same.   Then they descended the
stairs together to the aroma of coffee and cornbread and met Susana's grim
visage in the shop.
    The older woman thrust mugs of coffee
at them.   "I hate bearing ill news
first thing, but the Givenses have been murdered."
    Clark coughed coffee, so Betsy
surmised it was news to him.   "How
dreadful, Aunt.   When?   How?"
    "Last night about nine-thirty
or ten.   Lieutenant Stoddard saw a Spaniard
on horseback gallop away from the house, and so he investigated."
    Clark coughed again.   "A Spaniard ?"
    From the magnitude of his