A few hours later, just after midnight, I prepared to leave the house to return to Mrs. Burgin.
I stuffed twelve Spanish dollars into my new silk purse. Money, I well knew, rescued desperate situations better than any novel’s hero. Grabbing my black velvet mantle, I blew out the candle and crept downstairs.
In the kitchen, I hurriedly packed cheese, apples, and bread in a basket for the Burgin children. My every movement sounded too loud and my fingers twitched. Lucy’s tabby cat, Johann, watched me from his spot on top of the cupboard, his tail swishing. I’d just added a jackknife Maggie used for peeling to my purse when I heard footsteps crunching in the courtyard.
I spun to the door. Terror speared through me. Through the glass, I saw a face hovering in the darkness outside.
It wasn’t Sewel—it wasn’t—but it took me a few seconds to recover. I released a hissing breath and opened the door for Malcolm. My memories needed to quiet down again.
He stepped inside and pulled off his cap, brushing a hand over his spiking red curls. “My turn not to be able to sleep this time.” He wrung the black wool cap in his hands. “I heard what that woman said earlier, at Mr. Townsend’s. I have been worrying that…” He glanced at the basket. “That you would go back.”
“I am going back.” I slid the basket onto my arm. “I have to help her.”
“Let me go with you. It’s dangerous out there, Miss Em. At night especially.”
I knew it was. New York brimmed with soldiers and displaced men. Attacks on women were far too common. I wanted to point out that I had a jackknife and that my dark cloak would keep me hidden, but they seemed like ridiculous defenses now. “You would be dismissed if we were discovered. You and Maggie would be sent away.”
“I will lose my honor if I do not go with you. That I cannot live without.”
I shook my head. He had more dignity in one eyelash than most gentlemen I knew. But why shouldn’t he come? We were only going a few blocks and we’d only be gone an hour. Two, at most. “Whatever happens tonight, you must never speak of it to anyone. Do you promise?”
“You have my word.”
That was more than good enough for me.
We left through the courtyard gate and made our way into the streets. My legs felt shaky at first, but I soon found my stride. Walking with Malcolm felt familiar—it was everything else that seemed strange.
New York was a different place at night. Only weeks ago, General Clinton had issued a curfew at evening gunfire, but no one would ever know it. Laughter and music poured from taverns. Sailors and soldiers crashed through the streets, stumbling and stinking of rum and ale. Every second that passed, I felt better about having Malcolm with me.
In minutes, we arrived at the door with the slanted latch in the alley behind Townsend’s store and took the narrow steps up. I felt light-headed as we reached the top.
The door to the little storeroom was open. Mrs. Burgin stood inside, fastening the ties of a mobcap under her chin. She stilled as she saw us, the lone candle burning on the windowsill painting her in silhouette.
“You’re back,” she said, without a trace of surprise. Her three children slept on the floor, piled together like kittens.
I licked my dry lips. “How is the baby?”
She finished tying her cap. “Asleep now. The tonic you left helped.”
Never had thanks sounded so ungrateful.
“I am glad to hear it.” I lifted the basket. “I’ve brought food for—”
“Thank you.” She took the basket from me and set it down, then stepped out and shut the door behind her. I heard Malcolm bump into the wall as he stumbled back. “Why are you really here?” she asked. We were cramped on the landing now, face to face in the darkness.
“Because I want to know why you’re hiding from the British. I need to know.”
“Miss Coates, why are. You. Here?”
She said the last two words separately, filling them both with power. Suddenly I became aware of my own blindness to the situation. No amount of explaining would put me—a highborn lady—in the position I was in now. To answer her question, I’d need to begin with the story of a girl who’d once been a wrecker in West End, who’d been living a lie for years and was now suffocating and utterly desperate to feel something true.
Mrs. Burgin sighed with impatience, her breath whispering past my cheek. “Go home, Miss Coates. Before you damage yourself beyond saving. You haven’t the slightest idea what you’re doing.”
“I do, Mrs. Burgin,” I insisted. “I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting for you.” I felt pulled toward her strength. Intrigued by the mystery of her. Even her sharpness drew me in.
She looked past me. “And you? Are you here for answers, too?”
“I am here for Miss Coates,” Malcolm said.
Her gaze returned to me. “You both ought to have a higher regard for your lives. Come. Follow me.” She slipped between us and glided down the stairs, stopping at the bottom, where the light of the streetlamps found her. “You want answers, Miss Coates, but so do I—and I shall have mine first.”
We followed her without a word, venturing back into the streets.
Though she was even shorter than me, she walked quicker than a sandpiper. She took us north on Water Street—then north and still farther north. With the city blocks disappearing behind us, anticipation buzzed inside me. My lungs opened. My stride lengthened. The night’s sights, sounds, and smells sharpened. I felt like I was breathing through my own skin.
As we reached the outskirts of the city, we passed a field of makeshift shacks. Stray dogs pecked at dying cook fires. Men’s arguing voices rumbled to my ears. Like the Holy Ground to the west of us, I knew these were brothels and molly houses—brothels catering to men who favored men. Places where the orphaned and destitute often ended up. Where I might’ve ended up, if not for Miss Coates.
Leaving the field behind, we crept past a pair of snoring Hessian sentinels guarding a shipyard, where hulls curved into the sky like giants’ carcasses, and finally came to a ropewalk that stretched down to the East River.
A small boat rested on the muddy bank, two men standing by it. One chewed a piece of straw as he watched us. The other watched the river like he saw more than darkness and water.
“Mrs. Burgin, don’t you think it’s time you told us where we’re going?” I asked. “You can’t expect us to leave—”
“Stay here. I’ll only be a moment.” She walked away.
I let out a shaky, exasperated breath. This had already gone farther than I’d expected. At least an hour had passed since we’d left home.
“We shouldn’t go out there.” Malcolm stared at the river. “It’s past curfew, and there are night patrols.”
He was right—boats out after gunfire were in defiance of General Clinton’s laws. There were plenty of other dangers, too. When Maggie laced my stays and curled my hair in the mornings, she sometimes told me about wealthy Tories being kidnapped and held for ransom. About women, lured from the city and ravished. Best you know a little truth about the world, she’d say.
I knew plenty of truth. If we went out on the river, we might not make it back.
“I cannot protect you out there, Miss Em.”
“Go, then.”
“Not without you.”
I’d put Malcolm in a terrible position, but I couldn’t turn back now. I was close to something important. Something valuable. Whatever awaited at the end of this journey was calling to me. “I have to see this through.”
“Then so must I.”
Mrs. Burgin returned. “They are ready for you,” she said.
I knew better than to question her for more.
As we walked down to the waterside, my heart punched inside my chest.
Mrs. Burgin made quick introductions. The man with the straw in his mouth, Austin, handed Malcolm a scull. The black man with eyes as clear as water was Beckett. He offered an arm to help me aboard.
“Wait,” I said as they pushed off the gravelly shore. Everything was happening so fast and Mrs. Burgin hadn’t yet boarded. Then I saw how she stood on the river’s edge—her arms crossed, her feet planted firmly—and realized she’d never meant to come with us.
“You will have your answers, Miss Coates,” she called out. “For better or worse.” Without another word, she hurried back to the trail by the ropewalk and disappeared into the darkness.
I settled on the thwart beside Malcolm. There was nothing to do now but continue.
As we glided away from shore, familiar sensations swamped me. The rock and sway of the waves. The trickle of oars moving through the water. The smell of brine and damp wood. All of it took me back to a time when I’d been someone else. The currents grew rougher as we moved farther out, swirling with eddies. I sensed the little boat’s struggle and confusion, but the two men steered us ably and we moved deeper into the night.
“Starboard quarter,” Austin said some time later, his voice a quiet rumble, the straw bobbing in his mouth. “London traders.”
“What are London traders?” I whispered. I didn’t see anything off the starboard.
“Smugglers,” Beckett replied just as a whaleboat sliced from the darkness.
I gasped—it was so startlingly close I could’ve touched it. As it glided by, I saw a blur of eyes and dark caps. Blankets thrown over baskets and crates. Beckett raised a hand. One of the men in the whaleboat returned the gesture. Then it was gone.
For long moments after, my blood hummed from my head to my toes. I suddenly wanted to know everything about this strange and forbidden world. My body knew this—this feeling of daring and possibility. It felt new—and like coming home.
As the Brooklyn coast took shape, Austin and Beckett wrapped rags over the paddles to quiet them and plied on slowly, like they were stirring honey.
“There it is,” Austin said soon after. “Wallabout Bay.”
I’d heard of it before. The British had converted sugarhouses, warehouses, and even churches into prisons, but there still wasn’t enough space to keep captured Americans, so they’d turned to using condemned ships. Wallabout Bay was where many of these floating prisons were moored. But knowing about it didn’t prepare me for what I now saw.
Several gaunt ships were scattered over a wide bay silvered by moonlight. Large ships. Brigs. Ships of the line. Each had to hold hundreds of men, perhaps thousands, yet the entire bay was wrapped in an eerie, graveyard silence. A smell of human waste wafted our way, so foul I shuddered.
Malcolm coughed into his sleeve.
“You think that’s bad?” Austin made a gruff sound. “Just wait.”
They steered the boat into a narrow inlet north of the bay so covered with branches we had to duck to pass through. I stepped onto the silty shore and helped the men pull the boat between shrubs, sliding it into hiding.
I was in Brooklyn now. On shores that had always been across the river.
“Follow me,” Austin said. “Only a little farther.”
He led us through the woods, up an incline that kept crumbling beneath me. With every breath and stumble, more mud caked my gown and shoes. My hair came loose from its pins and fell down my back. I began to sweat and soon grew too hot to bear my mantle. I tucked it under my arm, wishing I’d left it and my purse in the boat.
We reached the top of the rise and knelt on the edge of a rocky drop. Wallabout spread below us, its moonlit waters streaked by dark patches of mudflats. The ships were much closer now, the stench so vile my stomach seized.
“Miss.” A kerchief appeared before me.
“Thank you, Austin.” I pressed it to my nose. Lavender essence flowed into my nostrils, bringing blessed relief.
“The one closest to us is the Jersey,” said Beckett. “The men call it ‘Hell Afloat.’ It’s prison to privateersmen mostly, but also some soldiers and militiamen. Some foreign captives.”
Hell Afloat. A perfect name. What a tormented thing. The portholes and gunports were boarded over, the decks stripped of spars, rigging, rails. Only the main and foremast stood, both bare as flagpoles.
“In the mornings,” Beckett continued, “the men are brought above decks. You see them and your heart weeps. They’re filthy. Rags hanging on skeletons. Eyes with no hope. Some scarcely have the strength to stand. Every day there’s some don’t last the night. Ten. Twelve. Sometimes more—that’s on every ship, not just the Jersey. Their bodies are put on carts and rowed ashore and buried. But they dig shallow graves and tidal flats are bad soil for it, as you can perhaps see.”
I looked to where he pointed. “Do you mean those are—” Hot water pushed into my mouth as my eyes adjusted. “Those are limbs? They’re bodies?”
“They are. God keep them.”
It was a horror. Elbows, feet, heads. Half-buried. Rising from the earth like some terrible crop. Tears blurred my eyes. “There’s so many.”
Austin plucked the straw from his mouth, tossing it away angrily. “Thousands.”
I knew no American soldiers. No militiamen. But I had known an American privateersman once. I couldn’t even bear to imagine Asa Lane on one of those hellish ships. I swallowed, finding my voice. “Why did Mrs. Burgin want me to come here?”
Beckett and Austin exchanged a long look. Austin was the one to answer. “She told us if you made it out here, we were to give you the truth.”
“I’m here. I am ready for it.”
“Eliza’s been helping some of those men escape. Thanks to her, some two hundred men have avoided the fate that awaited them on that shoreline.”
Awe swept over me. “She freed two hundred prisoners?” She was a heroine!
“That she did, till she was betrayed. Some weeks ago, a man by the name of Higday was captured by the British on suspicion of spying. Higday’s wife knew too much for her own good. She gave Eliza up to lessen her husband’s sentence. The bloody-backs came pounding on Eliza’s door, but she escaped and went into hiding. We’ve been trying to get her out of New York ever since.”
“Will you be able to?”
Beckett looked toward New York. “Ought to be done by now.”
Malcolm stirred beside me. “She left? She and her children?”
“She alone,” said Austin. “Eliza launched right after we did, about a half mile north of the ropewalk.” He lifted a pistol. “We were to sound the alert if we saw any patrols. Her children are in less danger. We’ll get them out when we can.”
“Who’ll care for them until then?” I asked.
The two men shared an uncertain look. “We’re still working that out.”
“Here.” I dug the Spanish dollars from my purse and pushed them at Beckett. “Take this. To buy food for them or hire a nursemaid—whatever they need, see they have it.”
Beckett stared at the coins in his hand. “This is too much.”
“No—it’s not enough. I want to do more.” This was my chance. I’d helped the cause of liberty how I’d been able, but I wanted to do more than deliver medicines to American prisoners. I needed to. I couldn’t let this pass me by.
Austin’s mouth tugged up. “Eliza thought you might say that. She said if you did, we were to tell you that only you know how you can help, and when you’re ready, you’re to see your friend.”
I shook my head, absorbing his words. Elizabeth Burgin had known what I wanted from the beginning. This entire outing had been a test of my daring and commitment, I realized. I’d proved myself tonight. “She said to see my friend? What friend?” Even now, she was a frustrating puzzle. Then I remembered her harsh words earlier—A friend? I hardly believe you—and it came to me. The eyeglasses. The sweet, full smile that greeted me every Wednesday from behind the store counter.
Robert Townsend.
Of course he was involved. He’d given Mrs. Burgin shelter.
A strange mix of excitement and shock moved through me. I’d known Townsend since I arrived in New York three years ago. Now I realized I hadn’t known the real man at all. He was part of this world. He was much more than the mild, bookish storekeeper he appeared to be.
“Beckett.” Austin suddenly whirled and raised his pistol.
I spun, searching the woods behind us. Through a shroud of branches and leaves, I saw the glint of weapons.
“You there!” shouted a voice. “Announce yourselves!”
“Loyalist militia,” Austin said. “Go!”
Fear exploded through me; I leapt up and ran.
“This way!” Beckett shouted, leading us downhill.
The slope was steep, but I didn’t dare slow down. Branches tore at my petticoats and slashed at my arms. My ankles twisted and jammed on the loose, pitted earth.
“Halt!” The shout was louder—so close.
A pistol fired, the sound thunderous. I stumbled, hit the ground, and went rolling, the world spinning, my cloak and purse flying from my hands. My hip slammed against a rock, stopping me.
Malcolm pounded up. He swept me to my feet. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Pain roared in my hip. He jogged over to my purse and cloak. I glanced downhill. I didn’t see Beckett anymore. “Malcolm, leave them. We have to keep moving.”
A figure shot from the darkness and rammed into Malcolm. He flew back and crashed into the dirt.
“Who are you?” demanded the man, pinning him. “Are you a spy?”
“No!”
A blade flashed and came to Malcolm’s throat. “Care to change your answer?”
Instinct drove me. I pulled my pocket watch over my head and threw myself on the man’s back. I slammed the hard silver into his ear as I came down. He yelled and rolled away, the knife falling from his hand.
I dove, scrabbling for it in the dirt, and shot to my feet. “Malcolm?”
“Here.” Malcolm came to his feet. In the darkness, all I could see was the muted red of his hair, the whites of his eyes.
“Bitch!” shouted our attacker, a beetle-backed man with a face cratered by scars who stood much closer. He touched his ear and his hand came away dark with blood. “Look what you did!”
I strode up to him. He reeled back, and then froze when I brought the knife to his nose. The rage that flooded through my veins came from somewhere else. It came from years ago. Never. I’d never again stand by as someone I cared about was hurt. “Don’t follow us,” I said. I leaned closer and lowered my voice to a breath. “If we’re caught, I will tell all your men that a girl made you cry out and bleed.” I flicked the tip of the blade, slicing his nostril.
He screamed and grabbed his face, doubling over.
I spun and ran, Malcolm right beside me.
When we were safely back on the river, with Austin and Beckett rowing us home, I finally relaxed my fingers. The knife peeled away from my sweaty fist and dropped into black water, vanishing. Only then did my hands begin to tremble.
I folded them in my lap, like a young lady, and watched the sun lift over the horizon.
Beckett calmly plied the oars. “Once again we have failed to die,” he mused.
“Aye,” Austin replied. “Once again.”
On the way home with Malcolm, I stopped at Mrs. Roberta Powers’s milliner’s shop and purchased a royal-blue ribbon. As it was morning now, my plan was to claim I’d gone out early to buy ribbon for Liesje’s wedding. The excuse was thinner than a cat’s whisker, but it was the only one I had. The Holdridges would either believe it, or I’d be ruined.
Pausing at the courtyard gate, I whispered a quick prayer. Malcolm stared straight ahead, avoiding my eyes. A small cut wept blood at his neck where the man had held the knife. Seeing it, my eyes blurred, the full scope of the danger we’d been in hitting me.
Inside the courtyard, Maggie Bowie was pinning bed linens to the clotheslines. She dropped her work and came over to us, anger sizzling in her gaze. She stared at her son for long moments. An eternity. Then she turned to me, taking in my muddy, torn gown. My mussed hair. “I made excuses. I told them I saw you this morning before you left on an errand.”
I exhaled. “Thank you, Maggie. That fits perfectly with—”
“With respect, Miss Emmeline, I did not lie for you. Malcolm is all I have in this world. I’ll thank you to not treat him as a toy that exists for your amusement. The Holdridges are away, but they’ll return soon. I will be waiting in your room. Best hurry. We have much to do.”
She disappeared into the house, leaving me to absorb the sting of her words.
Never had Maggie shown me anything but warmth. Every morning, she brought me tea just how I liked it, then helped me with my toilette, dressing me and curling my hair. Prattling on about who she’d seen at the fish market or in Hanover Square, somehow making the mundane lively and compelling. She loved talking as much as I loved listening to her. I hated that I had upset and disrespected her. I had wronged her just as I’d wronged Malcolm.
Suddenly the meaning of her words dawned on me. “Malcolm, she thinks you and I were—” My cheeks heated with embarrassment. “She thinks we snuck away to—” I couldn’t even say it. Malcolm was strapping. Striking even, with his vibrant green eyes and red hair. I’d seen both men and women baldly ogle him. But even had he not been a servant, I’d always thought of him in a brotherly way. He was too pure. Too good. I only pretended to be.
“Yes. Of course it’s what she assumes.” Red patches bloomed up his neck and over his cheeks. “I will speak to her and see that your virtue is restored in her eyes.”
“No—maybe it’s better this way. The truth is…well, it’s worse.”
He stared at me. “Miss Em, this night should not have happened.”
“I agree—I regret it terribly.”
His eyes narrowed. “You do?”
“Yes! I risked everything over a little curiosity. That man, Malcolm! And your neck. I put you in that position, and it shames me. I hate myself for it. I’d be so grateful if you could forget it ever happened.”
“Please—don’t hate yourself. You couldn’t have known what it’s like out there. I should have stopped you. I should have protected you. Instead, I—” He looked down, hanging his head in shame.
“We survived. That’s all that matters now. Let’s never mention it again.”
“Yes,” he said eagerly. “Done.” He reached into his pocket and handed me my watch. It had smears of dried blood on it. “A night forgotten.”
We stood a moment longer listening to street noises. A newsboy’s shouts. The rattle of wagon wheels on cobblestones. Then he left for the cottage workshop without a word.
This was exactly what I wanted. Whatever I did next, Malcolm would be no part of it.
He’d be safe.