Chapter 14

In the morning Anne came down to breakfast in her nightgown and robe, enjoying the feel of being corsetless, remembering the minor sensation she had caused at Benjamin Franklin's home, the stares, the jests, the gaping at her bobbling breasts. The three girls she rode home with refused to speak to her, hardly even glanced her way. She knew there would be talk, salacious talk. But she also knew she had not been the only girl being talked about in the city.

She saw two of the younger females pull their frilly bodices down beneath their breasts and another whose gown was unhooked all the way down her back with her admirer's hand inside it, both smiling all the while. She ate her breakfast with gusto and her aunt watched, amused as small sausages and lacy fritters disappeared.

"There is a young man here to see you," the old lady said blandly. "I put him in the parlor. The same one as before, the one-armed boy. He has some coffee and crullers so don't hurry. And he brought me two pounds of scrapple." She smiled, looking, Anne decided, like the cat that ate the canary.

"His name is Fields," Anne told her, lifting her chin and trying to look uninterested despite being impatient to see him. "We've known each other for years. Didn't I tell you? Since we were children. I'm not really sure what he does." The fact that she did know what he did was both exciting and worrisome.

"I've sent a message to my semptress. We'll go into town as soon as you are dressed. Annapolis obviously has no sense of style. I should have known."

"I was told that last night by several young women and one odd man, a very rude fellow that André called a pig-widgeon." Anne nodded, chewed, sipped and hurried into the front room in her slippers, her hair uncombed and tumbling about her shoulders and well down her back, a wild and unruly cascade in a multitude of dark reds and burnt golds, robe tightly belted, feeling as daring as she had the previous evening. Behind her, her aunt smiled, recognizing the symptoms, enjoying her memories.

"Tell me about the party," Billy begged, after a quick and friendly kiss, his knuckle under her chin. "What's the news, the tattle, the rumor o' the night?"

"Mostly of fashions, foibles and folderol, sordid affairs, squalid trifles, Billy. Things I cannot repeat to a male." She grinned at him, pleased with her alliteration. "Made me blush at times."

She decided not to speak of her discarded hip-hoops which she had crushed and smuggled home in her shawl. It was, obviously, none of his business although she was sure he would have enjoyed the telling.

"And so, come on, who was there?" Billy was amused as well as inflamed by her beauty and eagerness, her obvious excitement, her high color, her smell, her dishabille and her thoroughly untamed hair, a disordered haystack of intertwined curls.

"Young people mostly. There must have been a half-dozen girls my age or even younger, some little more than children. They were treated like pets and fed sweetmeats and tidbits." She went to the window and the morning light set her unruly hair aflame, turning its loose strands and endless loops to fiery gold, a sparkling nimbus, a cascade of incandescent lava. "It was André's party. He was likely the oldest one there."

"He's a dangerous man, macushla. Y'danced, eh?" Billy sat down, resisting his desire to hug the girl to him.

Anne shook her head and turned to face him. "Some played the piano which was tuned very oddly. André blamed it on Dr. Franklin. A few girls sang, and Captain André, he's silly, not at all dangerous, m'lad, he read a poem he had written. There was a lot of drinking, a great deal of twaddle and some game playing, lookabout and even blind man's bluff."

Billy smiled, shook his head and waited, knowing there was more.

The girl frowned and made a wry face. "I did not understand most of the poem, but I am sure it was about love, just full of odd allusions and flowery French. He said he had written it for me, told everyone, made me stand and bow, well, curtsey sort of, you know. I blushed, Billy. Honestly! They all looked at me; I mean stared." She was tempted again to tell him about her yanked-down under-garment, but choked back that story.

"Verra likely. An' was the stiff-rumped general hisself in attendance?"

"No, but I did hear he was resigning, going back home, back to England. Is that a secret? And there was some gambling in a back room, well, more than some I think."