Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [71]
Coverman scanned them, but something else was on his mind. “Where is the ship?” he asked.
Leonfeld started to answer, then thought better and turned to Picard, allowing an officer of the Royal Navy ship’s command to speak for it.
Picard responded with an inward shrug. “I’m afraid our frigate is aground in the Bay and has fallen to colonials.”
“Has it, now! Think of that!” Coverman turned to his wife. “Amy, think of it!” He swung around again. “How on earth did you escape?”
“We were on the land when the final attack came,” Picard said.
“What exceptional luck!” Jeremiah gasped with a nervous, overwhelmed shudder.
Sandy Leonfeld patted his cousin warmly on the shoulder, and turned to look at Picard and the other displaced crew of the lost British ship. “You see? I told you we would find a Loyalist haven in this nest of rebellion!”
At once Jeremiah Coverman’s smile fell away and a pasty fear took over his rosy expression. “Well, yes, you may have haven here.”
He ducked under his cousin’s arm, hurried first to one front window and drew shut the calico curtains, then crossed the closed front door and also drew together the curtains on the other front window.
“Yes—you could be safe here for a time, but … Delaware Station is a stronghold of patriots. Not like New York or Philadelphia, where there are forty or more percent of those still loyal to King George. You would be safer there, if you must stay. Loyalists are poorly tolerated here, especially among those who work at the boatyard, which are many. Have a care what you say and to whom you say it How we can get you back upon a British vessel, I’m sure I’ve no idea … certainly, we must find that way, or all is lost.” He ran a finger through the air to illustrate the clothes they were wearing. “Better you not be seen in your uniforms—I shall give you other livery. Oh, and you must be hungry! Amy, Mercy … please.”
He motioned to the two women. Amy Coverman turned and hurried back upstairs, and Mercy put her child by the fire and hurried to a wooden cabinet with cut metal doors, from which she extracted loaves of bread, a deep tin with a pie-crust topping, and a round whey-colored mound that might be cheese. She took those to the trestle table and set them beside the salt-glazed pitcher that was already there. Then she went after several pewter tankards on a shelf.
“Please,” Jeremiah said, and Picard noted that the cousin was suddenly nervous.
Picard empathized with the poor man, a Crown Loyalist living in a rebel port, now with a houseful of escaped British sailors, and even two officers, whom he felt a familial obligation to hide. This surely put Jeremiah Coverman in tricky straits.
“Please, sit down,” Jeremiah repeated, taking Sandy by the elbow and gazing briefly at him with a sad warmth. “Let me give you a few moments of comfort before the difficulties ensue.”
“Difficulties?” Sandy eyed his cousin, but stepped to the table and lowered himself onto the bench. He was tentatively joined by the two sailors, by Mr. Nightingale, and finally by Alexander and Picard.
Picard found himself watching the two cousins, especially Coverman. For a man caught in a strange country in which he was an enemy, Sandy Leonfeld was strangely relaxed. On the other hand, Jeremiah Covernman drew his brows, pressed a hand to his lips, tried to think, and each decision seemed to come at a price, even as simple as pouring ale from that pitcher into Sandy’s tankard. And strong-smelling stuff it was, too—
What was this? A poke at his thigh. Picard looked automatically to his side. Alexander was knuckling him in the leg. The boy’s eyes were wide, and he seemed aware of something Picard had missed.
“Something?” he asked, figuring matters were as well handled with honesty, but he asked it low, as the clatter of pewter