Chapter 93: Merciless

She was a very beautiful young woman, perhaps twenty; extremely well dressed in quite expensive clothes and they had been tailored to her lush body. She held herself regally, chin high, back straight, ready for anything.

Unfortunately she and her companion, a young officer from Connecticut, had not been ready for a couple of road agents. They chased the young couple and their pair of fine horses for several miles before a lucky shot from one of them killed the man and sent the light rig careering down a hillside. The girl was thrown out near the road and hid successfully in the shrubbery while the thieves ransacked the officer's body and belongings.

Now she stood completely dependent on me since I had found her hiding in a ditch about a mile from the site of the killing, her rich garments stained and torn. I got her up on my lap and walked my mare to the nearest tavern, barely a mile off fortunately for the girl as well as the horse and my bent prick. Although slim and stately, she must have weighed a good eight or nine stone. I enjoyed holding her as you can well imagine.

Now she stood by the run-down tavern's back door, waiting for me as I left the privy and approached, trying not to smile at her obvious beauty and just as obvious unease. My root was already three times its usual size and well down my leg.

We took a corner table, and I ordered some beer.

"Wine, please," she said. It was the first thing I had heard from her, and I was glad to find out she was not mute.

The tavern wench heard her and shuffled away. I introduced myself and told her that I was a soldier from Maryland.

She wrinkled her forehead. "Really?" she said softly.

I smiled, brushing dust from my sleeves.

I drank off most of my beer and waved for another. She sipped her local red and made a face.

"I'm," she paused, "I'm Mrs. Regent, Mrs. Armstrong Regent," she said, and I suspected it was a lie.

"And is that mister Regent back there with no boots on and a ball in his brain?" I asked, trying not to show my doubts.

She took a deep breath, a very pleasant sight in her low cut gown with its lacy trim and glittering buttons. She licked her lips. "No," she said, "that poor boy was his aide." She shivered. For some reason, I was sure she was not telling me the truth.

"Cold?" I asked, pushing one empty can aside and hoisting the second.

She sipped. "No," she looked down at her bare chest, "not really."

"Where do you live?" I asked.

"On the river," she said, "the Hudson. My father gave us some land and a small home when we were wed."

I nodded. "Hungry?" I asked.

She smiled and I ordered us some stew and bread. I was wondering how to could convince her that bed rest was what she really needed and then how to make sure she did not rest once we found a bed. My brain was always busy, but not so busy that I did not hear a board creak behind me and see the lovely girl's dark eyes widen slightly.

I ducked and turned, elbow raised, and jabbed the man behind me in the ribs just as he buried his hatchet in the table, missing my ear by an inch and spilling my beer.

The girl screeched as I stood, tripped the bearded fellow, drew my bayonet and fell on him, holding the tip of the blade at his Adam's apple. Then, much to my surprise, the girl jumped on my back and clawed at my face, and the man beneath me took the opportunity to get both hands on my right wrist and twist himself free. I shook the girl off and was up on one knee when a loud voice yelled, "Hold it, don't move!"

The inn-keeper stood facing me, spraddled legged, a big-bore shotgun in his hands that was aimed at my head.

"Drop it," he said calmly as the young woman stepped away from me, pulling her dress up over her high boobs, and the bearded man stood grumbling behind me.

I put my big knife on the table beside me, right next to the hatchet head.

"What d'ya want us t'do wif him, Dora," the inn-keeper asked.

"Kill him," she said clearly, "but not in here. Take him down to the creek."

I looked up at her, and she smiled at me. It was not a very nice smile.

The man behind me put one hand on my shoulder and the other on my right wrist. He pulled me around and toward him, and I relaxed and moved easily until I was facing him and then I grabbed his shirt and belt, bent, lifted him, spun and threw him at the man with the big shotgun.

He must have fired by reflex, his finger already on the trigger, because the booming shot shredded his man, tearing him open from chest to groin. The bleeding body fell on his legs, and I was right behind it, ripping the gun from his hands and smashing him in the head with its stock. He went down to his knees, and I hit him again. He fell over the fellow he had killed and was still.

I dropped the shotgun and turned to face the girl. There she stood, teeth bared, my big knife in her hand.

"Don't come near me," she said.

I stepped to her side, easily twisted my bayonet from her hand while holding her eyes, and put the thing into its sheath.

"Well," I said, holding her wrist. "Do I get an explanation?"

She shook her head.

I dragged her to the back door and bolted it, scared the tavern girl out the front door and dropped the bar and then hustled the struggling girl up the stairs and into the first room I came to. I threw her on the bed and stood facing her, fists on my hips.

"Explain," I said.

"Do you want me?" she asked, sitting up and pulling down her skirt.

I waited, trying to ignore the question as well as my excited state. She made a point of staring at my bulging codpiece.

"I'll do whatever you want," she said.

"Who are you?" I asked, slowing my breathing and hoping my prod might relax a bit.

She swallowed and licked her lips.

"The truth now," I said.

She nodded, straightening the top of her bodice. I enjoyed watching her chest rise and fall, her rounded boobies appear and disappear behind her lace and silk.

"My home is on the Hudson, but I am not married, betrothed but not wed."

"And?" I said.

"My, my intended is being held captive on one of the hulks out in the New York harbor."

I shook my head, stepped to the bedside and backhanded her across the face. It was a very satisfactory sound and brought forth a gasp.

"Try again," I said.

"I don't have a choice, honestly," she said, trying to hold my eyes and failing. She looked away. "They are holding my father."

I reached down the front of her bodice, grabbed a tit with my thumb and forefinger, pinched and twisted.

She squealed.

"Doesn't ring true," I said. "Try again, be inventive at least."

"You can swive me," she said, ignoring the upright breast I had bared.

"I will when I choose to," I told her as coldly as I could, by then well relaxed. "Who are you?"

"My name is Andorra Withers," she said, and I believed her. "I am not married, really I'm not. I am employed by Lord Howe, well, by Major André actually."

I nodded. "Go on."

"That's it," she said. "I do what they ask, and they pay me."

"You were born here, in New York?"

She nodded.

"Then you are a traitor, aren't you?"

Her eyes widened, and she took a deep breath.

"What do you do for them?"

"Seduce men, Continental officers for the most part; otherwise just attend parties, routs, keep my ears open."

"For what do you listen?" I asked.

"Inquisitive women," she said. "Lord Howe believes some of them are spies."

"Does he?" I said, aware that Howe was right.

She nodded and rubbed her nose. It was a very good nose but a trickle of blood had appeared at one nostril.

"How many men have you betrayed to them?" I asked.

"Perhaps a dozen," she said. "I haven't counted."

"What happened to them?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"How are you paid?" I asked.

She looked away. "Gold," she said.

I took her chin, raised her head so she had to look at me, and said, "No."

She pulled her head free, swallowed, grimaced and said, "All right, not gold; coca, coca leaves and spirits."

"Laudanum?" I asked.

She nodded.

"You use a lot?"

She nodded again. "Every day, sometimes three times a day, when I'm working."

"You need some now?"

She nodded, her breath a bit ragged.

"Do you have any?"

She shook her head. "There's a bottle behind the bar, a small bottle. It's labeled."

"And you want me to fetch it?"

She smiled and nodded.

I took her wrist, pulled her to her feet, hurried her down the steps and past the two bodies. She found the bottle, pulled the cork and put a few drops into a cup of water and drank it off.

"Feel better?" I asked.

"Thank you," she said.

"I think we had better leave," I said.

"Aren't you going to, you know, swive me?" she asked tentatively.

I smiled at her, took her wrist, put the bottle in my pocket and led her out to the shed. I saddled the smaller riding horse and helped her mount up, pulling her long skirt between her legs.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

I took her reins and led out.

An hour or so later, I came to a mill and inn where I was known, a place frequented by men who were patriots, one and all. I helped her down, brought her in through the front door, waved to the inn-keeper who gave me a knowing smile as I dragged her up the stairs.