David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“Cynthia, what would you have me do? I cannot leave you be. I must do something to protect you and your children. Tell me and I will do it.”

She turned from me but did not attempt to pull her hand away. After a moment, she squeezed it tighter. “There is nothing to be done,” she said.

“Yes, there is,” I said.

She turned back to me and pulled her hand away. “No,” she whispered. “No, Ethan, I cannot let you speak so. I don’t know if you mean a duel or something more nefarious, but I do not ask it and cannot countenance it. I hate him, but he is the father of my children, and I could not live thinking I had some part in such a thing.”

I took her hand back. “I do not suggest it, but there must be a way to be rid of him without resorting to the unthinkable, and I shall find it. I shall go to New York and confront him there, and I shall resolve this.”

“How?” she asked. Her voice was quiet, restrained. She did not believe I could do such a thing, and yet there was something akin to hope in her eyes.

“I have no idea,” I said with a slight smile. “But I will surely think of something.”

“Please wait a moment.” Cynthia left the room and came back a moment later with an envelope. “I hope I do not insult you or take liberties, but I know your means are limited. You must have some money for your expenses.”

“I cannot take it from you,” I said.

“It is his money.”

“Oh. That’s another matter.” I took the envelope and put it in my coat. “It’s not greed, you know, but the pleasure of using his own money to defeat him.”

Somewhere between the time I’d taken her hand and she left to bring me the envelope, Cynthia’s footman had disappeared, giving us such privacy as we would like. I cannot report we much exploited it. I understood she felt far too vulnerable for me to declare my love, and I don’t believe she required any such declaration to feel it. Instead, she wished me well, and, holding both her hands, I wished her the same. I dared not tell her of her father, not now. First I would rid her of her husband, and then I would tell her. I could not endure the thought of her having to live with Pearson, even to speak to him, knowing who he was and what he had done.

I could not think, however, how I would rid her of her husband. I had spoken the truth to her. I was not a murderer, and despite what he had done to Fleet, I could not kill him in cold blood. Were I to ask him to duel, I have no doubt he would reject me, even as I had rejected Dorland. It would be the rare husband who accepted a challenge from his wife’s admirer.

I would go to New York on the express coach leaving in the small hours of the morning. I would find out everything I could about Pearson: what manner of business he was involved in, how it connected to Duer, and how it connected to the plot against the Bank of the United States. And once I knew everything, I would determine how to convince him to trouble his wife no more. Perhaps it would even be enough to destroy him while still preserving his money for his wife.

I was walking I knew not where when a thought came to me. I considered how much easier it would be simply to duel, how I had avoided doing so with Dorland, and how even Dorland, who had challenged me, seemed disinclined to duel. And then, at once, a question of no small significance occurred to me. If he was so disinclined to duel, why had Dorland challenged me?

Of course, there could be a thousand reasons. He may have believed his honor demanded it, and he may have been convinced I would not accept the challenge, but he did not know me very well. He only knew that I had served in the war, and what man, cowardly and so disinclined to duel, would risk to challenge a man he knew to be a soldier?

Suspicions gathered in my mind, and though I ought to have left him and his poor wife alone, I did not hesitate to approach his house and ring the bell. When his man answered, I said that I must speak to Mr. Dorland, and for the sake of decorum, I would do so outside his house rather than inside it. My intention here was of sparing his wife the discomfort of seeing me, particularly in her husband’s presence.

I hardly believed the man would answer my summons, but indeed he came to the door, and if rather reluctant to step out of it, he remained slightly behind his footman, who was a good head taller. He peered out at me, his fleshy face pale. “What is it, Saunders? Why do you trouble me at my own house?”

“For God’s sake step outside, Dorland. I have no intention of harming you, and what I have to say is for your ears alone. Our business cannot be the business of those belowstairs.”

“It is not a trick?” he asked.

“You have my word as a gentleman.”

“You are not a gentleman,” he said.

“Then you have my word as a scoundrel, which, I know, opens up a rather confusing paradox that I have neither the time nor inclination to disentangle. Now step outside and give me five minutes of your time, and I’ll not trouble you again.”

I believe it was my impatience that carried the day. Had I been more unctuous and less urgent, he might well have been too cautious to leave his lair. My unwillingness to use any art must have bespoke my sincerity. I would have to recollect that trick for the future, I decided.

He stepped cautiously down his stoop and stood facing me, a good three feet away, close enough to admit conversation, too far for me to make, as he supposed, any sudden moves. He must have confused me with Lavien, for whom three feet would be as nothing. For me, it only made conversation more trying.

“Dorland, why did you challenge me to a duel?” I demanded.

“How can you ask me that?” Much of the rage he had demonstrated in our previous encounters, and which I had mocked, was gone. Now he seemed only saddened.

“I do not ask why you believed you had cause. I ask you why you chose to challenge me. Was it your own notion?”

He swallowed and looked away, then back. “Of course.”

“Who put you up to it?” I asked, my voice gentle. “Who suggested that you challenge me?”

“Must someone have suggested it?” he asked, but he had, with several signs and gestures, already answered that question.

“You are wasting my time, Dorland, and trying my patience. Who suggested it?”

“Jack Pearson,” he admitted. “It was he who told me about you and my wife, and it was he who told me to challenge you. He said you would never accept, and then I would be free to take revenge as I saw fit.”

It is strange. I ought to have been outraged, but I’d already learned that day that Pearson had stolen Cynthia and murdered my best friend, so this news could offer me no new anger. If anything, I felt victorious, for I had pulled from the fabric of the universe this thread of truth, and I had yanked upon it. Life offers such small triumphs. We must rejoice where we can.

“I have only begun to suspect the depth of Pearson’s villainy in deceiving you, Dorland. He had his own reasons for wishing to be rid of me, so he told you horrible falsehoods about your wife to prompt you to attack me. Only think of it. A man willing to ruin another’s domestic happiness in order to commit a vicarious murder.”

Dorland now came closer. “One moment,” he said. “Do you mean to say that you and my wife-I mean, that-that you-”

“Oh, just say it, Dorland. Were she and I together? No, of course not. I have addressed her more than once, and she is lovely, but how could you ever doubt so good a lady as your Susan?”

“It’s Sarah,” he said softly, his mind elsewhere.

“What do I care about her name?” I asked. “You ought to pay more attention to her goodness and less to her preferring to be called one thing or another.” It is well that Dorland was not so good at detecting a lie as I was. I saw no reason why I should not offer the lady this small comfort. I had made her life uneasy. Perhaps I could, with little effort, restore it.