Chapter 95: Charity

"Dragoons," George yelled just before we opened fire. "Don' miss!"

We didn't, and in a few minutes we had downed six riders, blown a witless driver from his seat and left an armed guard kicking in the ditch. They were good soldiers but no match for our weapons or marksmanship. We had started with four primed rifles, and after the first volley, George had loaded and I had hit them, one after another as they milled about, stopped by a felled tree on the narrow road. One ran for it, and I got him at about a hundred yards. George whistled at that one and then went around making sure of the dead and collecting purses, rings and other trinkets, while I opened the carriage door and ordered the occupants out onto the road.

Down stepped a small, foppish civilian, lean and extravagantly dressed; an ugly matron of advanced years in dark traveling outfit with a huge skirt, and then a young woman with pale hair and paler skin wearing a frilly gown and cape, proper for Mayfair perhaps but thoroughly unsuitable for the country or the times. She was a tasty little morsel indeed, and I expected to have some trouble keeping George from hauling her off into the woods and swiving her until she screamed for mercy. Old George was like that sometimes when his blood was up; to tell the actual truth and shame the devil, so was I. When George shot one of the wounded, all of us jumped and the girl screeched.

It was, we found quickly, a wedding party, on its way to deliver the girl to her intended, a well connected civilian attached to the colonial government, such as it was, and labeled a peace commissioner, if you please. The fop, between sniffs at his perfumed kerchief, produced papers showing that we should have let them pass unhindered, although I had some doubts about their bona fides and the dragoons had certainly been armed if poorly led. The papers were too clean, the signatures too studied.

We loaded them back into their seats, helped the grumpy old woman stuff her dress aboard, and I mounted to the driver's place. George claimed that he had only found a few shillings on the dead soldiers so if we were to profit from the morning's bloody work, it was yet to come and there were some doubts about whether or not we might find ourselves in the guardhouse or the stocks. We did round up several horses which we knew our officer would appreciate.

Lt. Foster took an immediate interest in the young girl in the lacy gown whose bulbous charms all but overflowed her bodice while the old woman fussed about, critical of all and everything. The pantalooned fop was led off, sniffing, to show his papers to the local authorities. I got something to eat and watched the playlet unfold, admiring the spunk of the luscious girl with the tiny waist.

In a half-hour or so, the civilian was back, waving his hands and sputtering, while the old woman was led off to the officer's tent. "She's a he, I tell you," the obviously exasperated man said, adjusting the lace at his deep cuffs and then producing an enameled snuff box.

Out of the tent, following a scream, came the old lady at a dead run, her voluminous skirts raised and hairy legs pumping. One of our cavalry officers stood by at the tent's open fly, raised his pistol and shot her down before she had gone ten paces. The escaping person threw up her arms and fell on his face, exposing the fact that she, indeed, was a male, and a hairy and hefty one at that. The man in woman's clothes lay in the mud, trying to move his legs and the cavalry captain reloaded his pistol and shot him in the back of the head.

"Damned turncoat," he said in explanation while the blonde girl stood with both hands to her mouth. The provost then dragged the slight man in the plum colored coat back for more questions. I sidled up to the girl who seemed to be in shock, eyes wide, breathing shallow.

"What's going on?" I asked, taking her arm and turning her toward me as the bloody body was being removed.

"I don't know," she said, gulping as if she might vomit. "She, I mean he, said that she was his aunt, the man I'm to marry. Then, then, after all that shooting, when you arrived, on the way here, that other man told me that, he wasn't going to marry me, not really, that I was a fool."

"Who?" asked I, getting her to sit beside me on a log. She smelled good.

"The viscount. My guardian made the match, said I must do as he said. He controls my purse, everything."

"How old are you?" I asked, looking at her creamy skin.

"Sixteen, just last week I turned sixteen."

"Who's this guardian?"

"He's a factor, in New York, deals mostly in cloth. My parents died on the ship, coming over, four years ago. My father was his partner, in the business." She produced a small handkerchief from somewhere and blew her nose.

She had a fine body for one so young; long legged, narrow waisted, full chested, and a deal of long, light-colored hair that she wore pulled back and flowing to her waist. "What's your name?" I asked after I introduced myself as a Marylander.

"Charity," she said quietly. "I'm called Charity."

"Have you met this man, this viscount?"

She shook her head.

The fop reappeared at the tent nearby, saw us and came to sit on the other side of the girl after dusting at the log with his silk kerchief. "Well," he said, "you provincials certainly are a hard-headed bunch."

"Tell me about the man she was on her way to marry," I asked.

He sniffed. "Marry, ha, not likely. Lord Dover has wed, as he calls it, countless times. I'm sure he has enough bastards out there to form his own regiment." He turned to the girl. "You're a fool, woman. There would be a ceremony with flowers and guests, even someone who looked to be a rector or minister of some sort, and then, after he had his way with you, probably before an audience, though you may not know it, that's when it would begin. Can you imagine being swived by twenty men in one evening?" He raised his eyebrow and studied the tops of Charity's plump breasts.

She shook her head.

"He shares women, he does, with his friends, with those he owes money or favors, with his fellow degenerates. He a dilettante, a sybarite, a, a libertine, yes, libertine, that's what he is. He has no morals. His brides seldom last a month, and the survivors are discarded in the gutters or brothels. Lord knows how many he's buried, mostly gutter snipes, serving wenches, women of the streets, proper whores. Don't know when he last had one as clean as you appear to be."

The girl sniffed and shivered beside me.

"What's your role in this?" I asked the man over the girl's head.

"I was suborned by that dead carcass they just dragged away. I owed money so put on the show, giving some grace to the filthy matter. Absinthe did me in, I fear. I do apologize," he said to the girl, touching her arm. "Have you tasted wormwood?" he asked me.

She pulled away, and I put my hand on her slim back, feeling her boned stays.

"Why would your guardian?" I began, but she raised her hand.

"He hates me, that's why. I wouldn't let him get in my bed. That's what he wants. He's done all the servants, most of his friends' wives, some of their daughters. The viscount's his friend, he said."

"Perhaps we can fetch this man out here, this viscount. What do you think?" I asked the fop while the girl bit her lip.

"Yes, he might just come; he could be tempted. Here," he said, and handed me a miniature painted on ivory that was a good likeness of the girl. "Show him this, and tell him the girl is waiting to be brought to his arms, eager to mate. He'll come, the blackguard."

So I went to Foster, and we hatched a plan. I made him promise not to bed the girl before I had a chance at her. He scowled but agreed, and I fetched Gilly to look after her and then warned George off.

Into the city I went again with Charity's calm likeness in my pocket. I had little trouble finding where the viscount lived since he and his reputation were well known in some of the higher-priced bawdy houses. I presented myself and the note Lt. Foster and I had concocted at his door the next morning and was ushered in to his narrow dining room by a liveried slave.

The viscount looked like a viper, lean and bald although I am sure he always wore a wig in public as did most of his class. He had large, protruding, bloodshot eyes, long ears and yellow teeth. His nose was almost non-existent and seemed to have collapsed into his pock-marked face. He was, in all, one of the vilest looking men I have ever seen alive. In fact I've seen men several days dead who looked a good deal better.