Chapter 3: A Remarkable woman

After Col. Backus died, they sent me back into Boston a few more times, but the last trip before the British up and left is the one I remember best. For all I know, it may be a turning point in the Revolution, but that is another story entirely and not mine to tell. This is my journal, my personal story.

It was late February or early March, in the midst of a thaw, and I had by then made some useful contacts of my own as well as continuing to check with the colonel's friends. One of my favorite and most useful sources of information was Madam Barry's bordello on Duke Street. It was a tall, frame, dormered structure with steep steps up to the front door. I always came in the back and made my way to the cellar where the madam had provided me a substantial old couch and a rickety table and set of chairs. Her "ladies," as she called them, could be a font of wonderful tales, rumors, and first-class information as well as not-so-innocent pleasure.

I was kissing a young whore who called herself July when she sighed, trembling because of what my fingers were doing, "They's leavin'."

I yanked my face out of her neck and my fingers out of her gash and whispered, "Who's going where?"

"Corny, Howe and them, all them fugging Redcoats, they's all leaving, every one," she said, pulling her clothes together and shaking her sweaty curls loose. She had done me to a fare-thee-well some time before.

"Where are they going?" I asked, helping her with her quilted petticoat. She had demanded my tongue's attentions as her reward for tolerating a most vigorous swiving under me that left her sore and hurt, so she said. I doubted it seriously.

"Don' know. New Scotland mean anyfing t'you?"

I shook my head between her soft breasts. "When?"

"Fortnight, this feller said. Tole me he'd miss me, 'e did." She grinned at me. "Are you leavin' too? You gonna miss me?" she asked as I stood and her ample jugs flopped about.

"You going with them?" I asked, slapping her open hand aside. I had seldom paid for sex since I was a boy back in Frederick and even then I had often paid with my tongue.

She shook her head. "Some of the girls, them what has reg'lars among the gentry and such, men that ain't as stingy as you is."

"My, my, and who might know more?"

"I dunno," she sniffed, "Mabbe that snooty Miz Singleton. You know 'er? She's a real King-lover, that 'un. I 'eard 'em talking 'bout her."

I knew who she was, the handsome hostess of one of Boston's best-known salons, perhaps the most flamboyantly dressed woman in New England, a reputed courtesan with many wealthy lovers, a good friend of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne although some insisted she was only his well-paid harlot, and wife of a notorious rake and libertine who was in the process, so they said, of dying of the so-called French disease.

The tall, dark-haired woman of perhaps twenty-five or thirty was an American, Rhode Island born I was told, and reputedly came from a poor, cod-fishing family. She climbed the bedroom ladder of success rung by rung on her shapely back and wide posterior, married into wealth and station, rising in the loyal ranks out of a career as a serving girl and cheap jade in a seafront tavern, so her many enemies said. If she had a weakness, they said, it was for over-sized jewels and slim young men.

"Who do you know over there?" I asked the young one as she pulled up her knit stockings.

"Just her very own maid, thas' all, her very own personal and private maid," she answered proudly.

"Her name?" I asked, holding up a shiny shilling.

"Duchess, they calls her," she said, snatching the coin and making it disappear like a magician. "She's black as tar. Tell 'er July sen'cha. She might help." The girl hurried off to earn her meals with her trained coney, and I went out in the twilight to seek information, my physical needs more than satisfied.

At the back of the Singleton's rented manse, a home that I had been told once belonged to some branch of the Adam's family although I'm not sure which Adams, I asked for Duchess. A short girl with an Irish brogue and ringlets at her ears told me to wait and in a minute or two a very dark, angular young woman appeared, wearing a frilly cap and looking curious.

"Dottie said there was a giant asking for me," she said, her speech soft and careful, a bit of the West Indies I guessed.

"July sent me," I told her and watched her reaction. She raised an eyebrow a quarter inch and the corner of her mouth even less, a twitch.

"And," she said, hitting the "d" hard and studying me as if she planned on taking me apart.

"She heard the British were planning on leaving soon."

"Well?" said the black woman.

"Might you or your mistress know about that?"

"She might, come in, mind your head," Duchess said with a knowing smile. "I'd guess you don' live 'round here." She led me into a small library and waved at a fragile-looking chair. "Be right back," she said, disappearing.

I paced the narrow room, looking at book titles and framed engravings, and when the pocket door slid open, I turned. There stood a striking woman, her hair piled so high that it made her as tall as I was. She wore a dark green velvet robe trimmed in soft gray fur, fox probably, which she held together at her narrow waist in a relaxed manner. She had wide shoulders and ample hips, long legs and an upright carriage. She held her chin high and there was some mischief in her gaze or perhaps it was assessment.

"Abd who are you?" she asked, closing the door soundlessly behind her, changing hands at her middle as she did.

I told her my name, said I was from Maryland, was in Washington's army, and had worked with Colonel Backus. I showed her his ring.

"Well?" she said, cocking her head slightly to the side, narrowing her eyes. She was wearing make-up, what we called paint in those days, that highlighted her eyes and cheekbones; her lips were rouged and her eyelids tinted. She exhaled and licked her lips. "It is true. We are leaving, all of us."

She sat on a small, gilt chair and crossed her long legs, flipping her robe's furry hem across to cover her knees. Other than her soft slippers and her dark stockings, she was, as far as I could tell, completely bare under her silken gown. I have no idea why or how I was sure of that.

"When?" I asked, seating myself and trying not to let my rising desire show. I crossed my legs too, feeling my cock tremble. She exuded vibrant femaleness, in other words, she smelled like sex. The idea rose in my mind unbidden.

"I don't know, soon I think. I cannot talk to you here." She took a deep breath and made an odd face, almost disgust, as though she might spit. "I shouldn't talk to you at all. Where are you staying or are you going back tonight? The colonel was a fine man but always in a hurry; may he rest in peace."

"I can wait for you, wait another day. I'm at Madam Barry's on Duke. You know the place?" I was tempted to tell her I would wait until hell froze over for her.

She nodded and smiled. "I have a soiree here almost at once. Some may already have arrived. I will come later, much later, with Duchess and a driver. I owe Backus that much." She waved in dismissal.

"Come around back, down the cellar steps. I'll leave a lantern in the side yard and one in the doorway." I gave her a smile, hopefully.

She nodded and stood. I put my hands gently on her velvet hips, and she lifted her chin, not bothering to hold her heavy gown together. Her eyes were gray. I kissed her briefly and was surprised to find the tip of her tongue in my mouth as she drew away, displaying the deep cleft between her upright breasts, the puff of her belly and the shadowed paradise beneath it.

"It will be late," she said and turned with a swish of her fur-trimmed wrap and left, striding through the doorway, taking long steps, swinging her arms, her gown billowing out at the sides. I caught just a brief reflection of her lean, pink body as she passed an ornate, convex mirror on the wall. It was enough to startle my cock into rigid attention.

I spent the day making my usual rounds, avoided the small but annoying patrols and chatting up various fonts of sometimes-useful information. Then, after a decent late meal, I dragged myself back to my digs and napped a bit, hoping the lovely woman was as good as her word.

The bell in the nearby church had clanged twice before she and her dark maid came though the basement door, bundled in heavy cloaks, both of them smiling as though they had just shared a good jest. I quickly roused myself, put aside my bayonet, and tried to look alert.

"Ah, he's awake," the woman said, dismissing the maid with a wave. "Tell Jim to return at five. No, six." She tossed back her hood and swirled out of her long, dark cape, handing it to me. I laid it aside on my couch, and she walked into my arms. I kissed her gently, and she kissed me firmly and ground her lush, silk-covered and stay-bound body into me. She tasted of wine. It was a fine, warm body that undulated in my arms and breathed desire. My big hands were busy while our mouths and tongues tangled and merged.

"Damn," she said softly, pushing me away. She was wearing a very fancy gown which seemed to have two diaphanous handkerchiefs for a top, pocket hoops that flared out her ornate overskirt and a striped petticoat made of dozens of yards of rustling silk. There were strings of small pearls roped through her dark hair, and she also had dangling pearl ear bobs and a strand of larger, dark and rather misshapen pearls at her throat. Her skin was perfect, nearly translucent, flawless, faintly fuzzy. She smelled of tobacco smoke.

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