“Why not both?” Uncle Henry added cheerfully.

I knew what they were all thinking. I’d first met Duncan at Ranelagh—dressed in my blue gown. Tonight, they expected him to propose at last. I expected it, too.

“What a wonderful idea,” I said, a lump rising in my throat.

I’d made them fall in love with a figment. A fabrication. Since I’d decided to leave my life with them, every word hurt. Somehow, after years of lying to them easily, I now couldn’t.

Before leaving the house, I folded my pearl choker into a kerchief and stashed it in my purse along with a jackknife from the kitchen.

For the past week, I’d been thinking about how to rid myself of Sewel. He was hunting me. I felt him lurking in New York. I had to find a way to give myself the upper hand.

His greed was one thing I could always count on—I knew it was what had really brought him back to me. There had to be a way for me to buy my freedom. The pearl choker was only a taste of what I could give him if he agreed to disappear for good.

As we stepped outside, the streets struck me as noisier and more crowded than just a week ago. Duncan had returned from the campaign with thousands of British regulars and Hessians, and their triumph was evident, taverns and coffee houses overflowing, their laughter and music everywhere. It felt like England had won the war.

Uncle Henry hovered protectively as we walked to Mrs. Powers’s shop. I found myself searching for Sewel in every face—but I knew him. He was murderous and evil but also a coward. He would wait to find me when I was unprotected and vulnerable.

As we neared the milliner’s shop, I spotted Townsend crossing the street.

“Miss Coates,” he called, jogging over. “Excuse the interruption, Doctor,” he said to Uncle Henry, and expressed his regrets for the sad event that had befallen our house. As he spoke, I noticed the sweat on his upper lip and the rapid blinking of his eyes. “The book you ordered some time ago has finally come in,” he told me. He handed me a packet wrapped in brown paper and twine. “ ’Tis the copy of She Stoops to Conquer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Townsend. How kind of you to bring it to me. Have you a minute to talk about another order?”

“Certainly.”

I turned to Uncle Henry. “I will meet you inside in a moment.”

My voice held a firmness that wasn’t Miss Coates’s, but no one seemed to notice. The Holdridges stepped into the milliner’s shop to look at pretty hats. Just like that, Townsend and I found ourselves alone and back to our old ways.

“I was contacted again,” he said as we drew closer to the shop’s brick exterior to avoid the street traffic.

I nodded. “Go on.” It was General Washington who’d contacted him, of course. I could feel it. I could see it in his eyes.