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“THE MOVEMENTS AND DESIGNS of the enemy are not yet understood.” . . . General George Washington in a letter to John Hancock, November 1776.
In the coming weeks as Betsy awaited further news of the war, she and Joseph attended Sabbath services together several Sunday mornings at Christ Church. On one especially sparkling Sunday afternoon following a mid-day meal with Aunt Ashburn, Betsy and Joseph strolled up Walnut Street to South East Square. Walking arm-in-arm through the park, the sun felt warm on their backs despite the crisp autumn breeze. Betsy reveled in the peaceful sounds of birds chirping as they darted here and there amongst the colorful red and yellow leaves.
“Autumn is a lovely time of year, almost as lovely as springtime,” she remarked. “If it weren’t for constant threats of war hanging over our heads; I would truly enjoy autumn this year.”
“We’ve also the threat of snow coming and . . .”
Suddenly, Betsy ceased listening to Joseph, for a scant three yards up ahead she caught sight of another couple strolling on the red brick path. Her blue eyes snapped fire.
“Look! Rachel and François!” She wagged a finger at the pair. “I cannot believe the audacity of that man!”
Jerking from Joseph’s grasp, Betsy quickly closed the gap between the two couples. “How dare you!” she cried, coming up alongside the elegantly attired Frenchman and her beautiful younger sister.
“Betsy!” the startled girl cried.
“Do our parents know where you are this afternoon?”
Rachel lifted her chin. “Pray, leave us be!”
“Yes, Betsy,” taunted the Frenchman. “Leave us be.”
Upon reaching them, Joseph took her arm. “Come along, sweetheart.”
Betsy jerked free of his grasp. “Do our parents know . . .?”
“Betsy, please.” Again, Joseph took her arm. “Beg pardon, sir,” he addressed the taller gentleman. “Good afternoon, Miss Griscom.” He politely touched his cap.
“It was a pleasure to see you again, Captain Ashburn.”
François inclined his head a notch.
As the accosted couple resumed their stroll, Betsy continued to glare at them. “I am so angry I cannot speak!”
“Yet you managed to convey your feelings quite well to your sister and her beau.”
“Her beau!” Betsy cried. “If you recall, only a few short weeks ago, her beau was bent upon killing her!”
“Well, apparently she has forgiven him,” Joseph muttered.
“Oh!” Whirling around, Betsy headed back the way they’d come. “I refuse to watch the two of them together! I refuse!”
* * *
AS BETSY LAY ABED THAT night, various scenarios played out in her mind; each a method of doing away with François Dubeau. Because she had brought the man into their lives, it was clearly up to her to protect, even prevent, her far more innocent, and apparently, lovestruck, younger sister from falling prey to the scoundrel’s trap. She simply could not let the reprobate harm her sister. But beyond snatching Rachel and holding her prisoner here, how could she stop the pair from seeing one another? She simply had to find a way to beat François Dubeau at his own game.
That François called at her shop the following afternoon came as no surprise to Betsy.
“What do you want?” Not inviting the elegantly dressed gentleman into her shop, Betsy regarded him with a fiery gaze, her arms folded beneath her bosom.
“Is that any manner in which to greet a friend?”
“You are the last person in the world I would call a friend. What do you want?”
A shadow of annoyance crossed the Frenchman’s handsome face as he nonetheless brushed past Betsy into the foyer.
She continued to stand near the opened doorway. “Unless you state your business at once, sir, I shall summon the authorities.”
He whirled to face her, his black eyes mere slits in his face. “And tell them what? That you and your pirate friend murdered M’sieur Paul Trumbell?”
Betsy’s gaze did not waver. “It will be your word against mine.”
“Your sister Rachel was also there. I assume she witnessed the crime.”
“As you well know, Rachel was tied up in the barn; consequently, she saw nothing. Nor did I for all that. I was hiding on the opposite side of the building. I heard a shot and when I peeked around the corner, it was far too dark to see a thing. I have no idea who fired the shot. For all I know it could have been you. Rachel mentioned you also being there that night.”
“If it weren’t for my intervention, Trumbell would have killed your sister the night he nabbed her. Trumbell is the impetuous one . . . as evidenced by the reckless manner in which he stabbed your young helper.”
Betsy gasped. “Paul Trumbell did kill Toby! I knew it.”
François shrugged. “The boy had it coming. One does not take money and then fail to discharge an assignment.”
“W-what had Toby promised to do that he did not . . . ”
François smirked. “You are so innocent, ma chérie. Your young friend bragged that he could poison the great General Washington the next time the statesman visited your shop.”
“Oh!” Betsy did recall asking Toby to carry the heavy tea tray up the steep stairs to the parlor the day the delegation called to ask her to sew a flag. Her heart sank. “Toby was just a boy.”
“Who lied. Unfortunately, by the time he told Trumbell he could not complete the task, he had already spent the money we had given him. Apparently that angered Trumbell, and without considering the consequences, he recklessly felled the boy on the spot.”
“Toby’s father was away fighting. He had been left alone to care for his family.”
“Which is none of my concern,” François countered. “As I said, Trumbell is, rather was, the impetuous one. I would have persuaded the boy to complete the task. To drop a bit of poison into a teacup is not difficult. Pas de problème. In a few hours,” he grinned wickedly, “the victim falls ill then keels over dead.”
Betsy felt sick to her stomach. “You are a ruthless, evil man,” she said through gritted teeth. “And mark my words,” she added, “one way or another, I shall bring you down.”
“Oh, I am so very frightened of you, ma petite.” Casting a gaze around the workroom of her shop, he advanced to a table and scooped up a pair of sharp pointed shears. “It is you who should be frightened of me. You know far too many of my secrets.” Eyeing her coldly, he did not elaborate. Then.
Betsy saw something in his gaze she had never seen before. Cold, hard, hatred. Though shivers of fear crept up her spine, white-hot anger kept her from retreating onto the flagway in order to escape the madman. She watched as he separated the blades of the shears and began to pick at his fingernails with one pointed tip.
“Très sharp,” he said, a lethal gaze pinning her. “Although I am not the impetuous one, had I a mind to, I could easily . . . ensure your silence this very moment.” He half-smiled. “A dreadful shame, the pretty mam’selle fell upon her own shears and . . . bled to death.”
Betsy did not flinch. It was three of the clock in the afternoon and above half a dozen people were parading along the walkway. Because she was visible to all of them, she felt reasonably safe. “You are wasting my time, François. I insist you leave at once.”
“Have you tea made, chérie?”
“I am not your chérie and I do not offer tea to traitors.”
“Ah. A pity.” He tossed the scissors aside. “I had thought we might adjourn to the parlor. There is something of a . . . private nature I wish to discuss with you.”
Betsy did not budge.
“Very well, then. We shall speak here. First, I wished to apprise you of my success with His Excellency, General Washington. My new employer has proven quite generous. He rewarded my efforts on behalf of the . . . Patriots quite handsomely.”
Betsy’s lips firmed. “I can imagine how meticulously you performed your duties.”
“Indeed, I did.” His tone was mocking. “Before quitting New York, His Excellency entrusted me with a packet of documents with instructions to deliver them immediately upon my arrival here in Philadelphia.”
Betsy’s eyes narrowed. If the wretch pulled the packet from his pocket and declared he had no intention of delivering it, she would snatch up the scissors and plunge them into his silk clad chest. Then as he lay bleeding upon the floor, she would deliver the missive herself. “Where are the documents now?”
He rubbed his chin. “I seem to have . . . misplaced them.” He turned both palms up. “Quite careless of me, I own. Perhaps I left them on a table at an inn where I paused to sup, or . . . perhaps I accidentally gave them to a friend.”
One of Betsy’s finely arched brows lifted.
“As you know, several of my friends are British officers.”
“Get out!” Betsy lunged at the tall man. “Get out!”
Amusement etched on his face, François grabbed her wrists causing her to struggle to free herself from his grasp. “I quite like a spirited woman.”
“Unhand me! I never want to see your murderous face again! Get out!” Unmindful of the ruckus she was causing, Betsy’s screams grew louder. “Get out! Now!”
“You all right, Miz Ross?” came a male voice from the doorway of the shop. “I heard screamin’.”
At once, François released her.
Her bosom heaving with rage, Betsy turned to the uniformed man. “This gentleman was just leaving.”
The Watch stepped past Betsy into the shop. “Miz Ross would like you to leave now, sir.”
His jaws grinding together, François stepped past Betsy and the older man. Before exiting, he cast a final look of loathing at her. “This is not over . . . salope.”
Her nostrils aflare, Betsy said nothing. She had never before been called a bitch. François Dubeau was a vile man. Step into her parlor, indeed! She was no one’s fool. Still, she could not help wondering if he had, indeed, come here today intent upon killing her? Fortunately, the Watch had intervened before he had a chance to do so.
It was quite some time before Betsy’s anger subsided and when it did, her thoughts turned to Toby. Poor, sweet lad. She had always assumed his father was a Patriot, now she wasn’t certain. Quite possibly the boy did not understand why the war was being fought. He had obviously become drawn into spying as a way of earning much-needed money for his mother and siblings. Obviously when he’d reported to Trumbell, or François, that General Washington had called at her shop and that she served the great man tea, they had leapt upon the idea of . . . oh, why was she further upsetting herself by ruminating on what might have happened? Still she kept returning to it. Perhaps after thinking about what he’d been told to do, poison the rebel leader, Toby’s conscience had prevented him from carrying out the deadly assignment. Her heart ached for the boy whose death had been in vain, since as it turned out, General Washington never again visited her shop.
Although Betsy now knew the truth about Toby’s death, and she also knew who killed John, unfortunately, learning the truth did not mean all her troubles were over.
* * *
“IT WAS DREADFUL, JOSEPH,” Betsy became agitated all over again when she relayed the vexing details of the Frenchman’s visit to Joseph later that evening. “He was deliberately taunting me, telling me how Toby was slain because he refused to put poison in General Washington’s tea, and how he had betrayed Washington by handing over the general’s private correspondence to a British officer.”
“I agree the Frenchman’s actions are despicable, Betsy, and young Toby’s death was most unfortunate, but you mustn’t continue to overset yourself. You attempted to warn General Washington against François. I own it’s regrettable that you were unable to do so, but it appears nothing more can be done. Let us pray no real harm resulted from his latest prank.”
“Prank? This was not a prank, Joseph! You said yourself that François is a cunning and dangerous spy. He does not engage in pranks! He is a killer.” Her eyes squeezed shut as she bit her lower lip to keep from revealing that François had threatened to kill her this afternoon. She did not want Joseph, who was also a trifle impetuous, to rush out and put a bullet through the man’s heart. It was too risky. The action would make Joseph a target for retaliation; or worse, he would be caught and hanged for the crime. She could not let that happen. Instead, she had no choice but to conceive her own plan to trap the man, and she would not tell Joseph anything of it.
She had also intended never to tell Joseph about the part François played in John’s death, however, later this afternoon as she thought over her confrontation with the contemptible man it had occurred to her that if François discovered that Joseph’s ship was now anchored in the harbor chock full of muskets and gunpowder, there was no saying what he might do. He had single-handedly caused one deadly explosion. Her refusal to supply François with the information he sought regarding the weaponry meant it was possible he could wreak the same havoc again. An explosion aboard the Swallow would not only kill Joseph, it could wipe out his entire crew who also lived aboard the ship. Moreover, a blaze on one ship in the harbor could easily destroy half a dozen other ships also anchored nearby.
“I . . . have not told you everything François has done,” Betsy began softly.
Joseph exhaled. “Something told me there was more, sweetheart. You are far too overset. Tell me what is plaguing you now.”
Betsy told Joseph all that François had said the day he denied involvement in Rachel’s kidnapping; that it was he who caused the Dock Street explosion that eventually claimed John’s life. “I refuse to watch you die in the same dreadful manner John did. Or, any one of your crew.
“François is a heartless killer, Joseph, and he must be stopped.”
Convinced of the impending danger now, Joseph leaned forward. “Tell me what you want me to do, Betsy.”
“For now, I merely want you to sail the Swallow some distance away from Philadelphia and store the weapons and ammunition you took from the British in an . . . undisclosed location. Swear your men to secrecy. François appears to be quite masterful at uncovering the truth. He must not discover where you store the cargo.”
The following night Joseph told Betsy his aunt had a friend with a little-used rock barn behind his stone farmhouse at a place called McKonkey’s Ferry.
“Even if François does learn I’ve stored the weaponry there, to burn down a building made of stone will not prove a simple task,” he assured Betsy.
* * *
A SEN’NIGHT LATER, both Betsy and Joseph attended a Fighting Quaker meeting and were as stunned as everyone by the war news now filtering down to them from New York.
On Friday, November 15, British General Howe had sent one of his officers, under cover of a white flag, to deliver a message to the rebel commander at Fort Washington. The message was terse. “Surrender at once or face annihilation.”
The following day, Saturday, November 16, four Patriot generals, George Washington, Israel Putnam, Nathaneal Greene, and Hugh Mercer, convened to discuss what should be done regarding the British officer’s threat. During the interval the generals were deliberating, the enemy suddenly descended upon the rebels. The initial assault was an unrelenting pounding of cannon aimed at Fort Washington’s outer walls. Seconds later, four thousand Hessian troops headed down from the north while British General Cornwallis’s entire regiment, plus a battalion of Highlanders, simultaneously struck from the east. Before the rebel troops had a chance to fend off the unexpected assault, another force of three thousand redcoats came marching up the hill from the south. In a matter of minutes, above eight thousand British troops, more than four times the number of rebel soldiers that had been assigned to defend Fort Washington, had committed to slaughtering every last rebel inside the fort.
One soldier reportedly said, “When I saw a cannon ball blow off parts of two men’s heads, I ran for the fort.”
Following the ferocious battle, the remaining Patriots who were left standing were marched from the fort between two lines of Hessian soldiers and ordered to lay down their arms. The defeat of Fort Washington, agreed all the Fighting Quaker members, was yet one more disastrous loss for the rebel army’s now quite battle-weary soldiers.
As Betsy and Joseph walked home that evening, she murmured, “I shudder to think what is in store for us now. A fortnight ago we thought the British were headed straight for Philadelphia. Now it looks as if the war might end before it comes to that.”
“When and where the enemy will attack next cannot be predicted. I honestly don’t believe either side knows how to end this conflict. I suppose the fighting will continue until there’s not a man left standing. And, then we’ll still be obliged to deal with the king. Looking back, it seems foolish that we set out to take on the whole world.”
“We chose to fight because our Cause is just!” Betsy cried. “We are an independent nation and we should be allowed to conduct our lives as we see fit.”
A lop-sided grin softened Joseph’s features. “I do not wish to fight with you, Betsy. No doubt I’d lose. I quite agree with the Patriot Cause, but anyone with half an eye can see that we have far fewer men and resources than the entire British Empire. At any rate, with winter fast approaching, the fighting will no doubt cease for a spell. At least until spring.”
“And then what?” Betsy muttered glumly.
“We must take this one day at a time, love.” He brought her gloved hand, clasped warmly in his, to his lips. “Have you spoken with Sarah recently? I’m certain you told her about seeing François and Rachel in the park. What does she say about your sister’s rekindled romance?”
Betsy sighed. “She says Rachel is convinced that the larger man, the one who snatched her, would have killed her if François had not intervened. Rachel is persuaded that if you and I had not appeared in the barn that night, François would have returned and set her free.”
Joseph grimaced. “And what of your parents? Are they aware that Rachel has resumed her courtship with the Frenchman?”
“Sarah said they still refuse to allow her to go out alone after dark, which, does reassure me; but what is to prevent our younger brother George from escorting Rachel to Sarah’s home of an evening and then François coming later to collect her?” Betsy’s head shook sadly, causing the hood of her cloak to slide down her back. In the lamplight her rich chestnut hair gleamed like burnished copper. “I daresay Rachel is as headstrong as I was when I was her age. I was just as determined then to see John as Rachel is now to see François. And Sarah was equally as eager and charitable to help John and me as she is now to help Rachel.”
“Have you considered that perhaps François truly cares for Rachel?”
“François is incapable of caring for anyone but himself,” she snapped.
“Rachel is a very pretty girl. The two of you do look enough alike to be twins.”
“François is a killer and by his own admission, he is merely trifling with my sister,” Betsy replied. But, what did it matter, she asked herself. Some way . . . somehow . . . the lover’s ill-fated romance would come to an end. In the meantime, she must also be vigilant for her own safety. François’s threat that he wished to see her dead felt like the blade of a guillotine poised to come crashing down upon her head. And she had no way of knowing when the blade would fall.