matter, resinous trees, river mud, and hot brick would be stifling, but for the moment, the faint scent lent a piquant touch to the gentle air. I was tempted to walk, but even my most utilitarian shoes weren’t up to an hour’s walk on country roads—and if I waited for sundown and the cooling evening to make my way back, I’d be remarkably late.
Neither was it a good idea for a woman to be alone on the roads, on foot. Day or night.
I thought I could manage the three blocks to the livery stable without incident, but at the corner of Walnut I was hailed by a familiar voice from a carriage window.
“Mrs. Fraser? I say, Mrs. Fraser!”
I looked up, startled, to see the hawk-nosed face of Benedict Arnold smiling down at me. His normally fleshy features were gaunt and lined, and his usually ruddy complexion had faded to an indoor pallor, but there was no mistaking him.
“Oh!” I said, and made a quick bob. “How nice to see you, General!”
My heart had sped up. I’d heard from Denny Hunter that Arnold had been appointed military governor of Philadelphia but hadn’t expected to see him so soon—if at all.
I should have left it there but couldn’t help asking, “How’s the leg?” I knew he’d been badly injured at Saratoga—shot in the same leg that had been wounded a short time before, and then crushed by his horse falling with him in the storming of Breymann Redoubt—but I hadn’t seen him then. The regular army surgeons had attended him, and from what I knew of their work, I was rather surprised that he was not only alive but still had two legs.
His face clouded a bit at that, but he continued to smile.
“Still present, Mrs. Fraser. If two inches shorter than the other. Where are you going this morning?” He glanced automatically behind me, registering my lack of a maid or companion, but didn’t seem disturbed by it. He’d met me on the battlefield and knew me—and appreciated me—for what I was.
I knew what he was, too—and what he would become.
The hell of it was that I liked the man.
“Ah . . . I’m on my way out to Kingsessing.”
“On foot?” His mouth twitched.
“Actually, I had it in mind to hire a gig from the livery stable.” I nodded in the general direction of Davison’s stable. “Just round the corner there. Lovely to see you, General!”
“Wait a moment, Mrs. Fraser, if you would . . .” He turned his head toward his aide, who was leaning over his shoulder, nodding toward me, and saying something inaudible. Next thing I knew, the carriage door popped open and the aide jumped down, offering me an arm.
“Do come up, ma’am.”
“But—”
“Captain Evans here says the livery is closed, Mrs. Fraser. Allow me to put my carriage at your service.”
“But—” Before I could think of anything to complete this protest, I was handed up opposite the general and the door firmly shut, Captain Evans hopping nimbly up beside the driver.
“I gather that Mr. Davison was a Loyalist,” General Arnold said, eyeing me.
“Was?” I said, rather alarmed. “What’s happened to him?”
“Captain Evans says that Davison and his family have left the city.”
They had. The carriage had turned in to Fifth Street, and I could see the livery stable, its doors hanging open—one of them pulled entirely off and lying in the street. The stable was empty, as was the stable yard—the wagon, the gig, and the small coach gone with the horses. Sold, or stolen. From the Davisons’ house, next to the stable, the tatters of Mrs. Davison’s lace curtains fluttered limp in a broken window.
“Oh,” I said, and swallowed. I darted a quick look at General Arnold. He’d called me “Mrs. Fraser.” Obviously, he didn’t know what my current situation was—and I couldn’t make up my mind whether to tell him. On impulse, I decided not to. The less official inquiry there was into events at Number 17 Chestnut Street, the better, whether the inquiry was British or American.
“I’m told the British kept quite a clamp on Whigs in the city,” he went on, looking me over with interest. “I hope you weren’t much troubled, you and the colonel?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not really.” I took a deep breath, groping for some means of diverting the conversation. “But I have been rather short of news—er, American news, I mean. Have there been any . . . remarkable developments of late?”
He laughed at that, but wryly.
“Where shall