Nolan looked at her with a detached expression. “Let them burn their own hovels.”
“Philip, whether you think it or not, a public clamor is very likely to affect the government’s determination to punish.”
Nolan collected himself with a sip and said evenly, “I thank you for the things you have said. For your concern I am deeply beholden. I know very little of law or lawyers and, as you say, even less of politicians, but I will be judged by a military court, composed of fellow officers. They are men very far removed from politics. Since Burr has been found innocent, I see no way that they can convict me.”
“You did leave your post. Is that not a mortal offense? And how can you know that the military judges do not want command of a regiment or the governorship of a territory? Would not President Jefferson have it in his power to reward them for your conviction?”
Nolan was silent. Across the dining room he watched as an infantry officer poured wine for his wife. They were laughing.
“I care for you, Philip, but you are nothing to the prosecutors. You are a statistic, a jot on a clerk’s ledger. You said you will not allow yourself to be made a scapegoat.”
“I will not.”
She leaned forward. “Then you must leave the city. You must.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have given my parole.”
“Words.”
“I nearly lost my life over a few words, madam.”
“Do you not understand that they must have a conviction? This is no longer a storm that is passing overhead, Philip. You cannot be so proud as to attract lightning. What I have is yours. I have enough, more than enough, to get you away and keep you in a safe place.”
“Keep me?”
“To keep you safe.”
“I do not wish to be kept.”
“Kept from the noose, then, Philip. The coach is there in the livery yard. You can be on the packet in Newport News before dawn tomorrow and can take ship to Charleston or even Savannah. I will go to meet you as soon as I can.”
“And then what? Would I pretend to be someone else?”
Lorina blinked at Nolan as though he were an obstinate child. “Would you stay here and be lampooned by a crooked court?”
“If I lied to you, would you still care for me?”
“I would not. I would be mortally offended if you lied to me.”
“So I am to lie to everyone but you?”
“Have you not been lied to by Burr? And that greasy oaf Wilkinson—he couldn’t tell the truth except by accident. Don’t be a fool Philip, and don’t be too virtuous to walk through a door that has been opened for you.”
“Don’t tell me what is right or wrong.”
Lorina felt indignation warm her face. “You are ungrateful.”
“Is this how you would have me show gratitude to Wendell and Alden? By bolting?”
“Is your pride so cast iron that you will not step out of a fire?”
“To go where? Into some cloud of perfume? To hide under your petticoats?”
“I am offering you a way out.”
“If I did sneak aboard a ship, would you come for me? Even if you did start, you would soon think better of it. You would turn around halfway when you realized that a man willing to turn his back on his friends must inevitably betray you as well.”
Lorina’s eyes flashed. “Then damn you for a fool, Philip Nolan.”
“I have been fool enough—for you.”
The trembling silence between them went through the close room like a ripple across a pond, working itself between the laughter from other tables. The tavern keeper turned and peered into their circle of candlelight. He watched Nolan say something. He could not hear it but he saw Lorina stand and place her napkin on the table. It was a gesture of poignant finality.
The keeper came over and bowed. “May I be of assistance?”
“Mister Nolan is tired,” Lorina said coolly. “I am afraid I have kept him up too late.”
“I’ll have the porters bring you to your room, sir.” The tavern keeper went away to fetch the footmen, and almost a full minute passed in silence.
Lorina said quietly, “Shall I see you in the morning?”
“You may do what you wish.”
Lorina turned and walked out of the salon, and Nolan heard the inn door open and then close behind her. Until this moment he had not known that anything other than the swirl of battle could confuse and stab him so.
NOLAN COULD NOT SLEEP, AND SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT THE WOUND in his chest burst open. Kosinski was summoned and administered a blue pill and a vile-tasting draught. When that failed to calm the patient, a healthy bleed and a strong dose of laudanum appeared to address the pain. But these remedies made the other, less physical, complaints very much worse. Through the night Nolan remained agitated and restless. Near dawn Nolan succumbed to a short scrap of sleep, but woke, instantly lucid, as the sun came up.
“You are not a theatrical man,” Kosinski said. “And I, too, try to avoid melodrama. You are not well enough, my friend, to endure any further emotional shocks. If you do not rest, you will come upon a dangerous, perhaps even lethal, pneumonia. I recommend to you a stout breakfast—perhaps burgoo, bacon, toast, and even a moderate dram of coffee—to stimulate the humors and give you energy for what may prove a trying day.”
“I have had a bellyful of nonsense.” Nolan winced. “I need this to be over.” He sat up in bed and was bound tightly in clean bandage. Kosinski carefully placed Nolan’s left arm into a sling and he was carried like a parcel from the hotel to the armory. The short trip was made in the early morning, for reasons of safety and public order. As word of Burr’s acquittal filtered through the city, it had produced a spectrum of opinion. The prosecution had been singularly important to the party of President Jefferson, and the verdict of “not proven” had dismayed the Washington City establishment greatly. Unexpectedly, some of Richmond’s bluebloods took a discreet pleasure in Thomas Jefferson’s setback. Although the president was one of their own, Jefferson was not held in universally positive regard. Landowners found the president a reliable supporter of their “peculiar institution” of slavery (Monticello was, for all its glamor, a working plantation), but Richmond’s elite considered Jefferson’s enthusiasm for democracy a bit overdone. Not that planters or money men would have done Nolan any violence; it was President Jefferson’s partisans on the more incandescent end of the spectrum—the laborers, mechanics, and shopkeepers—who were appalled that Burr had slipped the noose. To these citizens, Burr’s plan to split off the western territory was an unforgivable sin; they saw the lands beyond the Mississippi as their patrimony and the legacy of the Republic. Their fury was aggravated by testimony that Burr had conducted a secret correspondence with Lord Merry, the British ambassador at Washington, begging for the Royal Navy to help him subdue New Orleans. This scrap of evidence burned like a spark; repeated in public houses, amplified by alarm and indignation, by the morning of the court-martial a rumor circulated that even now Burr was planning to lead a British squadron into the Chesapeake to bombard Norfolk.
By the time Nolan was carried into the armory, two or three hundred persons had gathered around the building, and a company of dragoons stood guard. The crowd outside hovered and grumbled, but inside