The Dutch Girl Read Online Free Page B

trust you,” asked Anna, who, however deep her reservations, could not deny the force of the woman’s argument, “when I don’t even know your real name?”
    â€œBecause I will do what the Widow did not, even in death. I will give you
my
real name. It is Kate Grey. My father is one of Washington’s commanders. They call him the Grey Fox. My husband is an English lord who has been attainted a traitor. He is wanted by the Crown for treason and by the army for desertion. I spied for the Americans in Philadelphia, and while I was there, I killed a British officer. There is a price on my head, and I stillthought it worth coming to New York, entering the lion’s den, to beg your help. You hold my life in your hands. I have some of the Widow’s skill, but none of her ruthlessness. If you ran to the fort now, I would not escape Manhattan alive.”
    â€œIf I go back to Harenwyck, if someone recognizes me,
I’ll
hang.” She was trying to talk herself out of it. She was safe here. She had Mrs. Peterson and Miss Demarest and the girls, and even if she could not marry and start a family herself, she had a role in shaping such futures for the young women she taught. There was value in that. And security.
    â€œIt would be safer to stay here,” agreed the woman who said her name was Kate Grey.
    Anna believed her. She’d been a terrible judge of people when she’d arrived in New York, but a decade teaching adolescent girls had schooled her in the art of mendacity as her years with the Widow never had.
    â€œBut not by much. And this,” her visitor continued, “is your opportunity to make your father’s death and all that you have suffered mean something.”
    Miss Ashcroft—Kate Grey—was nearly as good as the Widow. She was fired by the same zeal. She made no false promises or assurances of safety, simply laid out what was at stake. But Anna was not naive enough to think she was free to choose. She had seen the carrot, but the Widow had taught her to keep one eye out for the stick.
    â€œSafer, you say, but not by much. So what happens ifI elect to stay here, at the school, and you have to find some other spy to send to Harenwyck?”
    â€œYou own an empty house on Pearl Street,” said Kate Grey. “The deed is in your name, and there is a body in the basement.”
    â€œIf you know that, then you know that I didn’t put it there.”
    â€œYes. But you will have a difficult time convincing a jury of it.”
    â€œSo the high ideals of your revolution embrace blackmail, then.”
    â€œYour position as a finishing school teacher has insulated you from the suffering in the countryside, Miss Winters. There are families who have had everything taken from them. They were not given a choice in the matter. The Widow rarely acted out of sentiment. She rescued you for a reason and educated you for a purpose. I doubt that it was to teach watercolors and dancing lessons.”
    Miss Ashcroft stood up and tied on her plain hat. “The patroon’s man of business will likely call on you tomorrow, or the day after. He is here to sell Van Haren’s produce, and to buy seed and pots and pans and kettles and harness to sell to the tenants of Harenwyck at prices that will keep them forever in debt and tied to the land.”
    She knew it. Her butter and her flax had made that journey. She’d bought buttons and needles and copper pans in the manor house store at dear prices, and everyyear, no matter how much more her family had produced, they found themselves a little poorer.
    â€œIf you accept his offer,” continued Kate Grey, “and travel to Harenwyck, you can write to me care of your housekeeper here. Mrs. Peterson will forward your letters.”
    Of course. The Widow had found Mrs. Peterson for Anna. Mrs. Peterson alone knew what Anna had been before she became a teacher, though not where she had come from, or what she had