America's Daughter

by Celeste De Blasis

Genres: Classics; Family Life; Historical Fiction; Sagas; War & Military

Synopsis

An epic and heartbreaking novel about a woman caught in the fight for American independence, perfect for readers who loved My Dear Hamilton and Flight of the Sparrow.

Addie stands with the restless crowd in Boston Harbor, watching her brother climb aboard the English tea ship. She isn’t supposed to be out, but this is no ordinary night. When she sees him start to toss the cargo into the water, she knows her world is about to change forever…

1773. As the fight for American independence begins, Addie Valencourt’s tight-knit family is torn apart. When the British lay siege to Boston, her father welcomes the English army into his home, while her brothers and childhood sweetheart Silas leave to join General Washington. Addie is hatching a plan to follow them when she meets Scottish Highlander John Traverne. The frowning, dark-haired soldier is unlike anyone she has ever known, but she must stay true to Silas and her promise to join him and the Revolutionary army.

Addie adjusts quickly to life in the army camp, comfortable with the rebels fighting for their freedom. But when Silas is captured by the British, she knows she must risk it all to search for him. But venturing into enemy territory brings her face to face with the Highlander once more. Now Addie must again ignore what her heart is telling her, to protect the secrets—and even the very lives—of the Patriots on the dangerous front line…

The first part of a haunting, emotional and heart-wrenching trilogy.

Release date: April 27, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

It seemed as if all of Boston was at Old South Meeting House. People had started gathering hours before, and had continued to come in their thousands until Old South and the streets outside were packed solid.

Ariadne clutched her twin’s hand so tightly, Adrian winced. “I am not going to lose you,” he grumbled in her ear, “but if you don’t loosen your grip, my hand is going to fall off.”

Addie complied, but she didn’t break contact. Suddenly their adventure didn’t seem as good an idea as it had at the beginning. “Papa is going to lock us up forever if he discovers where we’ve been,” she said.

“There is so much confusion at home, no one will know we’re not there.” Ad was fairly certain of that, but he shared his sister’s tension. The crowd was growing restless, coiling with energy as if it were one great beast instead of separate souls. It was waiting for word that Governor Hutchinson had backed down from his resolve that the tea-bearing ships in the harbor not be allowed to leave without unloading their cargoes. The governor had gone so far as to order Admiral Montagu to block the harbor.

Ad studied the faces around him. He knew some of these people. He reminded himself that these were no more than the citizens of Boston, here to make known their latest grievance against a government in England that seemed determined to treat the colonists as less than Englishmen. Still, Boston had seen disturbances before, and not all had been harmless. He could hear his father’s deep voice denouncing the actions of the mob, warning of the danger of “witless mechanics,” common laborers who were pleased to defy the Crown’s authority just for the sport of it. Three years before, people had died when soldiers had been provoked into firing on civilians. His father would never forgive him if anything happened to Addie.

“Perhaps we ought to go home now.”

He had barely got the words out before Addie refused.

“No! We haven’t found Justin or Silas yet. I know they’re here, they must be. They wouldn’t miss this.”

Ad had a good idea of how angry Justin, their older brother, was going to be if he saw them, but he knew it was useless to protest further. Though he knew Addie understood his misgivings, she was determined to see this through; he could feel her stubbornness as if it were wrapped around her like a cloak.

And then the waiting was over. Francis Rotch, whose ship the Dartmouth had not been allowed to leave the harbor, had, at the request of the meeting’s leaders, gone to appeal to the governor. Now it was six o’clock, and the captain returned to say that the governor would not relent.

Samuel Adams and his fellow lawyers, Josiah Quincy and John Rowe, had kept the crowd diverted, orating on the non-importation of certain British goods, specifically the tea in three recently arrived ships, but now Mr. Adams stepped into the pulpit and intoned, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.”

The twins were outside Old South but near the door, and no one was taking particular notice of what appeared to be two stripling boys. The words rolled over them. Almost before the last syllable died, a war whoop sounded from outside, close by them, as if Adams’ words had been a prearranged signal, and a band of men dressed as Mohawk warriors dashed past, down Milk Street, heading for Griffin’s Wharf. “Boston Harbor is a teapot this night!” someone shouted.

The disguises of feathers, blankets, smeared faces, and night shadows were not deep enough to conceal Justin and Silas from the twins. Addie’s “There they are!” was an echo of Ad’s exclamation, and they flowed with the crowd down to the wharf, trying to keep Justin and Silas in sight, losing them in the press of people.

Addie was dizzy with excitement. It was like watching a dance. The crowd did nothing to interfere with the “Mohawks,” who in turn carried out their mission as if they had long practiced it. Others joined the first group from various locations until there were three companies of “Native Americans” to row out to the tea ships, the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver, anchored in the harbor. Addie thought she saw Justin in one of the boats, but soon the motion obscured all.

“We must go home now. They will be hours at their work,” Adrian said after they had watched over the water for long moments.

Addie resisted briefly, but then she allowed him to lead her away. There was no doubt about what the warriors were doing. Earlier in the day, John Rowe had asked the crowd, “Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?” and a shout of approval had answered him. It would take time to dump the detested cargo into the sea.

“What if the soldiers come?” Addie asked, glancing around, struck by the realization that there were no redcoats in evidence but sure they would be very interested in this business.

“If they come, we don’t want to be here.” Ad tugged at her hand, hastening her along, but both of them were thinking about Justin and Silas, about what would happen if the soldiers caught them.

It was not the cold of the December night that made Addie shiver. Boston, indeed much of New England, had defied the government in various ways for years. The Stamp Act, passed in 1765, had caused such resistance and required so much effort and money in attempted enforcement that it had been swiftly repealed. The colonists would not tolerate having every official document, newspapers, and a host of other papers taxed with the required stamps. But in 1766, the same year as the repeal of the Stamp Act, a Declaratory Act had been passed to make clear that Parliament retained the right to tax the colonies. Soldiers had been quartered in Boston, and the tension between them and the civilian population had increased until it had culminated in what was known as the Boston Massacre because five civilians had been killed, three dying at the scene and two later as a result of their wounds. It was a measure of people’s tempers that little note was made of the fact that the civilians had been armed with cudgels and the like and had been taunting the soldiers, nor was it often related that there may have been no clear order to fire. The soldiers had been withdrawn to Castle William, a fort on an island in the harbor, to ease the strain, but that was no real distance away.

What had gone before seemed in many ways worse than this night’s work, but somehow, Addie knew it was not. She did not think so many people had ever gathered before in Boston or anywhere else in the colonies. And even now Justin, Silas, and other Sons of Liberty were deliberately destroying property in which the government had a vested interest. And Boston, surrounded by water with just a narrow neck of land connecting the city to the rest of Massachusetts, was vulnerable to control by forces of the Crown.

“Tonight, it is different, isn’t it?” Her breath was a white plume in the darkness.

“Yes,” Ad said, not needing her to explain.

The twins finished the last part of their journey in a near run, trying not to stumble over refuse in the streets, though no soldiers, nor anyone else, impeded their progress. The soft glow of candlelight from their home had never seemed so welcoming.

The Valencourt house was nearly as fine as that of the Hancocks, which was acknowledged the best in Boston. Located in the South End on Summer Street, it was strong in brick, yet graceful in its symmetry and in the gardens around it. It was also large, a factor the twins hoped would help them now, as it often had in their comings and goings. They slipped around to the back, went in through the door to the winter kitchen, and found Tullia waiting for them.

She shook her head. “You two have the Devil’s own luck. The mistress is having the baby, been working at it since early on. Your father has no idea you two have been gone nearly all day.” Her frown deepened as she studied Addie. “You’re sixteen years old, girl, you have no business running about in boy’s clothes.” But even as Tullia scolded, her hands were busy fixing plates of food for them.

No matter what mischief the twins got into, Tullia cosseted them. She had come north from Virginia with their mother, Lily Castleton. When Lily died, their father, Marcus Valencourt, had given Tullia her manumission papers. But Tullia had chosen to continue working for the Valencourts. She was head housekeeper and head cook, and all the servants in the household deferred to her or found themselves looking elsewhere for work. Tullia was patient with her underlings, and no one worked harder than she. Her rule brought order and harmony to Valencourt domestic affairs and, since their father prized these elements highly, the arrangement suited Marcus perfectly. It seemed to suit his current wife, too, for she had not sought to make any changes.

Marcus’s first wife had been an Englishwoman. He had married Millicent Leighton in England before coming to the colonies with her in 1740. From that marriage he had two living children—Darius, who ran Valencourt business affairs in New York City, and Callista, who had reversed her parents’ journey and lived in England with her English husband. Millicent had died of a fever in 1748.

Marcus had married Lily Castleton four years later, and from that marriage he had Justin, the twins, and their younger brother, Quentin. A son born after Justin and before the twins had died in his first year of life, and Lily herself had perished in childbirth four years after producing Quentin. The twins and Justin remembered Lily clearly, and Quentin thought he did because Marcus had encouraged their memories and had made sure they retained close ties to the Castletons in Virginia.

And now Marcus had a third family. He had married a widow, Mary Jenkins Tideman, the previous year. She had brought her two small children with her: Peter, who was five this year, and Jane, who was three. And she was laboring to present Marcus with another child.

Addie had been uneasy about her father marrying again, fearful of the upset that could bring. But her fears had proved unfounded. Mary was not one to make more work where things were running smoothly, and her energies were concentrated on loving Marcus, not on rearranging his household. At thirty-one, she was twenty-two years younger than Marcus, but that seemed to make no difference to her. Nor could her motive for marriage have been material gain as she had been left with a comfortable estate when her first husband died. And she was a comely woman, with dark-blond hair, soft features, and brown eyes. Soon after meeting her, Addie had understood why her father had seemed so much younger and happier. Now she was so fond of her stepmother, she didn’t want to consider that they all might lose her in childbirth. She heard a muffled sound from the upper reaches of the house, and she shuddered.

“Two times before she has done this, and she says it went well. No reason for any trouble this time. She has the best midwife with her,” Tullia said. Then her eyes narrowed as she looked from one twin to the other. “Something big happened out there, and you two were right in the middle. Justin, too. My Justin, he’s all right? And Silas?”

They had never figured out how she did it. Her life seemed circumscribed by the house, yet she always seemed to know what was happening in the town, particularly when it involved any of “her” children.

They broke under her scrutiny, and the tale poured out, told in a two-voice chorus to the end.

“We know they went out to the ships.”

“But we don’t know what happened after that.”

Tullia closed her eyes, mumbling to herself, then she drew a deep breath. “Those boys, they’re lucky, too, they’ll be fine. But you have to know this is no mere prank. This is serious. And it is going to break your papa’s heart. He is the King’s man, always will be.”

“It is not the King who uses us so sorely,” Ad protested. “It is Parliament and the King’s Tory ministers.” This was an old discussion for the twins, for they had gone over it often with Justin, and even with their father, who, for all his loyalty, thought the King was ill-advised and Parliament often blind regarding colonial affairs.

But Tullia did not share their view. “The King, he is the master. Doesn’t matter what others do for him, he’s the one who tells them or lets them do bad.”

Addie knew it was futile to argue with her and, besides, it was too frightening to consider that she might be right. To defy Parliament and an assortment of ministers was one thing, to defy the King quite another—it was the road to treason and retribution.

They were saved from further discussion by their father’s arrival. “Tullia! I have another… Oh, there you are!” He beamed at the twins. “Mary has given birth to a boy! We’ve named him Clement.”

Marcus Valencourt was a tall, broad man, the strength of his frame belying his long years as a merchant and scholar. His dark hair was lightened with silver, but his dark eyes were bright with excitement over his new son and relief that his wife had survived the ordeal. He had seven living children. He named them in his mind: Darius in New York, Callista in England, Justin, Adrian, Ariadne, Quentin, and now Clement. And though Mary’s children were not his by blood, he loved them anyway. They made the total nine. He supposed he could add Silas to make ten, for Silas had been part of the family for years. He had had losses of children in both of his previous marriages, and Lily had been lost through childbirth. He knew how fortunate he was to have so many surviving children and a healthy, loving wife. He felt so content, he scarcely noticed that Addie was wearing her brother’s clothes again, nor did he question how they’d spent their day. Instead, he urged them to come with him to meet their new brother.

Neither Addie nor Ad had the courage to mention to their father that Justin and Silas might be in dire trouble at this very moment. Though they, particularly Justin, were often at the family home, Silas had his own quarters in rooms above Valencourt’s Book and Stationery Store, and for the past year, Justin had been living above Valencourt’s Printing Office, next door to the bookstore on Cornhill, the main thoroughfare since the earliest days of the town. Tonight, the twins would just have to trust that the two had returned safely from the tea dumping.

The twins obediently admired Clement though, in truth, they shared the opinion that his red, wrinkled skin made him look like a miniature old man rather than someone newly born. Their next task was to placate Quentin, whose thirteen-year-old dignity was much injured by their having left him out of the adventure he was certain they’d had.

“You are always sneaking away without me,” he complained.

“You wouldn’t have liked it,” Ad said. “We stood for hours listening to speeches.”

Addie backed him up with a vigorous nod.

Quentin was mollified by this information, for he had no interest in speeches.

In the odd way of nature, Justin and the twins bore the look of Lily Castleton in their finely drawn features, golden brown hair, and eyes that Silas claimed made them look like fey wood spirits. But their minds were Marcus’s legacy to them. They loved ideas for their own sake. They loved languages ancient and modern. Books were the most beloved of their possessions, and nothing was more enlivening than exchanging views about the contents of those books.

Quentin was cut of different cloth. He looked like Marcus, his hair and eyes dark, his features, even at his young age, reflecting the strong jut of brow, nose, and chin of his father. But he was no scholar. Most of what enthralled his siblings and his father bored him. Information and ideas were only interesting to him if they had some practical application. Justin teased that, to Quentin, the universe was nothing more than a machine.

Quentin’s passion was for fixing things. Already he had proved useful with clocks, pocket watches, cooking spits—anything with parts that had to work together to work at all. To Addie, his mechanical abilities were marvelous alone, but his artistic talent astounded her. She could draw well enough, and she, Ad, and Justin could sing without disgracing themselves, but Quentin had been able to paint and draw with surprising skill before he could read and write, and he could play all sorts of musical instruments with little effort, as if the process of putting together images or musical notes required no more thought than breathing for him. These were Lily’s gifts to Quentin. Marcus had saved scores of her drawings and watercolors, not dainty efforts but vivid proof of an artist’s eye. And the older children could still remember the clear purity of Lily’s voice singing to them.

Quentin adored Justin, so there was an added reason for the twins not to tell him what had transpired. It was a long night, especially for Ad, who shared a bedroom with Quentin. He couldn’t sleep for worrying about Justin, and he wished he and Addie could have kept watch together.

With the dawn of the new day, all of Boston knew what had happened the night before. In less than three hours, the “Mohawks” had broken open and thrown into the sea three hundred and forty-two cases of tea. No damage had been done to the ships. Redcoats had never appeared nor had British guns fired. No one had been hurt, but great lumps of ruined East India Company tea were washing ashore.

Marcus was torn between joy at the birth of Clement and horror at what the “rabble” had done. When Justin arrived, having been summoned by messenger to greet his new half-brother, Marcus hardly gave him a chance to look at the new arrival before he demanded, “Do you know anything about this tea business?”

Justin met his father’s eyes squarely. “No more than you, Papa, though I understand the reasons for it.”

Justin loved and respected his father, and he winced inwardly every time he lied to him, but the truth would no longer serve. Justin was nineteen, but often these days he felt as if he were decades older. Keeping secrets from his family was a large part of the burden, but so was the terror of his thoughts about his duties and his rights as an Englishman. Though he had been only eleven years old during the protests against the Stamp Act, and though he had shared his father’s horror at the unruly and destructive actions of the mobs that had gathered to protest and gone on to harass Stamp Act officials and destroy property, still there was inside of him an ever-growing conviction that the mother country and her colonies were drifting further apart than the broad expanse of sea that separated them.

It was not the same for his father. Though Marcus had prospered in America far more than he could have in England where, as a younger son of a family of moderate wealth and title, the best he could have hoped was to acquire a position in the clergy or a commission in the military, and though he had lived in America far longer than he had lived in England, he still considered himself entirely English. Despite living in Boston where the heritage of the Puritan founders was carried on by the Congregationalists, Marcus was an Anglican. He worshiped at King’s Chapel, in the stone building that had replaced the wood of the first Anglican church in the Puritan town. It made sense to him. . .