Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution by Suzanne Adair

Helen attempted to breathe calmness and experimented with
the sensation of catastrophe averted.   But calm eluded her, and her head still pounded.   She didn't feel protected.   From where she stood, she could see the case
with one pistol resting on the couch, the absence of the second pistol a
damning piece of circumstantial evidence.   Lieutenant Fairfax had enough evidence to arrest her.   Why had she placed her salvation in his
hands?
    Chapter Eleven
    HELEN CLOSED
THE pistol case and handed it to Enid.   "Put this back."   Enid
glanced at the door to the study, and Helen, certain her housekeeper again
fancied use of the pitchfork, felt her patience fray.   "Give Mr. Fairfax no trouble in there."
    Enid studied
her face, an uneasy marriage of skepticism and chagrin roving her
expression.   "He defended you, as
if he'd some honor in him."
    Honor.   Hypocrisy embittered Helen's heart.   She wasn't the person she'd thought herself
to be and hoped Enid possessed the judgment to not regard Fairfax as a hero.
    The reproving
edge melted off Enid's frown.   "He saved you."
    "Damnation."   Helen left the parlor and rushed out the
back door, just reaching the vault in time to puke.   Despite the heat, the flies, and the stink, she remained inside
with the door closed a few minutes after the heaves subsided.   Anger denied her the relief of tears, and
she was angry with just about everyone: herself, Badley, Prescott, Silas,
David, Arthur Sims, Fairfax, Enid.   Charles, too.   She pounded the
wall with her fist.
    Self-pity
exhausted, she stumbled out, dizzy and sweaty, at the same time Enid emerged
from the house.   The servant rushed
forward and caught her about the waist.   "This has been too trying for you.   Lean on me, now.   Upstairs you
go, and let's get you to bed."
    Helen might
have shrugged off the housekeeper and lurched up to bed by herself, allowing
Enid space for her own grief.   But all
she wanted that moment was freedom from the fiery spear in her temple.   Enid whisked her past the study, where
Gaynes and Fairfax discussed evidence, and upstairs to the bedroom, where she
stripped Helen down to her shift and tucked her into bed.   "I shall be back with chamomile tea
after those men leave."   Enid
supported her shoulders and pressed a goblet to her lips.   "Drink this.   All of it."
    Parched, Helen
gulped the water.   Near the bottom of
the goblet, a faint aftertaste registered on her tongue.   Laudanum.   Knowing her sensitivity to the poppy, Enid hadn't added much.
    Her tone gruff
yet gentle, the servant eased her back onto the pillows.   "You sleep a few hours."
    Already the
headache thrashed her with less ferocity.   Enid drew the drapes, and as she let herself out, Helen heard the
committeeman and Fairfax in the foyer.   Gaynes, grudging and subdued, said, "How long you been piecing
together evidence this way?"
    "When I
was a boy..."   The bedroom door
closed on Fairfax's response.
    The poppy
cradled Helen, cushioned the throb in her head, eased her passage into slumber
she'd craved.   When I was a boy ,
she thought with curiosity.   Then sleep
swallowed her.
    ***
    Night had
fallen.   Feet on the floor, Helen
realized she'd been sitting on the edge of the bed several minutes, traveling
from the sleepy haze of narcotic to a wakefulness that was, at last, headache
free.   Enid puttered about the floor
below.   Helen imagined smelling a
multi-course meal: roasted chicken, buttered rice and squash, an apple tart,
fine wine.   For almost a year, she
hadn't had the money to afford it.   She
shook off the fantasy.   In another
minute, she'd awaken enough to realize she was ravenous and thirsty.   She'd make do with soup, bread, and
coffee.   But first she had to remember
her dream.
    Except, she
recognized as she came more fully awake, it wasn't a dream.   It was a memory from almost two decades
past, when she'd been about eleven years old.   With a frown, she rose from bed,