Meanwhile, despite the conditions, the British officers were doing their best to re-create the pleasures of London. They opened a theater and, there being no troupe to perform, put on the plays themselves. As the spring of 1777 progressed, there were races, dances, cricket. And then, of course, there were the women.

“Armies always attract women,” her father remarked to Abigail, and she could see why. The streets might be filthy, but the officers parading through them in their bright uniforms were like so many gorgeous birds in plumage. Nor were the married ladies of the city indifferent to the brave showing of the officers, or to their power. Mrs. Loring, the wife of the Commissar of Prisoners, was so often seen with General Howe that it was assumed she was his woman.

“Is she his mistress?” Abigail asked her father.

“I can only say,” he answered, “that she is always at his side.”

Indeed, an air of agreeable sensuality, warmly encouraged by the commander, descended upon the richer part of the town.

Every so often, Abigail would be aware that Grey Albion had gone out in the evening and not returned by the time Hudson locked the house. Several times, curious, she had seen him quietly enter the house after Hudson had opened it up again soon after dawn. Reflecting on this to Ruth in the kitchen, one morning in May, she’d received from that lady an amused smile.

“Ain’t nothin’ lackin’ in that young man, Miss Abigail, you can be sure.”

But as summer approached, everyone knew that the British would make their move. Although the colonies, from Boston and New Hampshire in the North down to the plantation states of the South, were nominally under Patriot control, the only organized Patriot army was still the ill-trained and much depleted force commanded by George Washington, down in New Jersey, barring the road to Philadelphia.

In June, General Howe had made a sortie toward Washington, and Grey Albion and his fellow officers had been gone for a while. Though he believed, like his fresh young officers, that his regular troops would destroy the Patriots in open battle, Howe had learned at Bunker Hill that, with good cover, the Patriot sharpshooters could inflict terrible damage. When he couldn’t get the battle he wanted, therefore, he was back in New York by the end of the month. So the question now was, what would he do next?

It was just the previous day that Abigail’s father had been asked to supper with Howe. On a whim, he had taken her too.

She’d found it strange to be sitting so close to the general. The only other guests were Mrs. Loring and a couple of other officers. Knowing what she knew, each time the general turned his big fleshy face and protruding eyes toward her, Abigail could not help imagining that she was gazing into the face of King George III himself.