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head snapped up, and she knew her refined voice had given her away. Now what? The man’s wrinkled lids narrowed. “It’s employment in the colonies you be wanting?” he asked dubiously.
    Canada would be better, but beggars could not be choosers. Virginia was the nearest she could manage. “Aye.”
    After a moment his head bobbed, as if he had been suddenly enlightened. One thin eyelid closed in a sly wink. “Ran afoul of the law, did you? All right. Just sign your name. You know ’ow to do that, don’t you?”
    She nodded, unable to speak.
    “Let’s see . . .” His ink-stained finger jabbed at a name on another list. “Your ship—the Cornwall — is bound for Virginia.” He passed her the paper. “Your indentured papers, they are. They will be auctioned off in the colonies. Take them along now to the magistrate.”
    Jane stared blindly at the parchment for several moments before the words came into focus.
    THIS INDENTURE made the twelfth day of August in the Year of our Lord one thousand, seven h undred and seventy-four between on the one part and of the other part do hereby promise to serve in such employment as is the custom of the country for a period of years, of which the said shall pay the passage and allow meat, drink, apparel, and lodging during the said term; and at the end of the said term to pay the usual allowance according to the custom of the country. IN WITNESS whereof the parties above-mentioned to these Indentures have interchangeably put their Hands and Seals.
    Signed, Sealed, and Delivered in the Presence of:
    Below was the one sentence: I hereby acknowledge that I have not been coerced into service .  Jane took up the quill, dipped it in the inkwell and beneath the sentence wrote the name Meg O’Reilly.
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    E than lit the pewter lamp on the escritoire and set to writing. Penmanship came laboriously to the backwoodsman, but his quill scratched hastily over the parchment, for his ship was due to sail with the tide.
    My dear Franklin,
    I learned today that our illustrious King George, as Prince of Hesse-Kassel and Hanau, has called for the troops of that German ministate to relieve those English soldiers stationed in the Mediterranean—so that the royal troops can reinforce those already stationed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Also discovered that a certain member of the cabinet has put forth the idea of appealing to Catherine of Russia for troops to conquer those “rebellious Boston provincials.”  This from my voluble dinner partner, the Duchess.
    He paused, the quil l twirling absently between fingers the size of piano keys. His other dinner partner . . . aloof, distant, witty, sparkling. In a way she reminded him of Susan. But Susan warmed and soothed like wine and did not go to the head like champagne. The Lady Jane—brilliant and brittle.
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    T he lean, bronzed body slipped lower past the woman’s flesh-padded rib cage. The Canadian cabinet member’s wife gasped, “ Mon Dieu !” as the tawny head buried itself between her ample thighs. The British officer was doing something her husband had never attempted to. “ Mon Dieu !” the Frenchwoman cried out again, and clutched the sun-streaked head to her.
    Afterward, she lay spent on the rumpled sheets, her soft, voluptuous body exposed. The officer, supporting himself on one elbow, plucked with teasing fingers at the thick tufts of hair beneath her outstretched arm. Yet she sensed with some disquiet that he was no more aware of her now than he had been during the hours he had made love to her. She knew the officer no better now than she had three weeks earlier. Assigned to the governor’s retinue, he had been in her husband’s office with Governor Carleton one afternoon when she called upon her husband.
    She could not honestly say the officer seduced her. He had offered no flowery blandishments, as did the other British soldiers garrisoned in the Province of Quebec. At