#culper ring

Got this baby on Vinted 🫶🏻 I am NOT overpaying for books. Sorry, not sorry.

Also, Ben!!

The fog off the Long Island Sound always tasted like salt and secrets.

Emma Brewster, though the ledger in a dusty church vestry three colonies away read Emma Basset, stood on the shoreline, her boots sinking into the wet mud of the spit. She wore a faded wool kirtle, her sleeves rolled past her elbows, a heavy knit shawl thrown over her shoulders against the biting autumn chill. Her hair, the exact shade of spun gold that belonged to a woman long dead and buried, was pinned hastily back, safe from the spray of the water.

Out in the gray gloom, the rhythmic, muffled thud-clack of oars against tholepins signaled his return.

"He's late," Anna Strong murmured from her side, her hands tucked deep into her apron pockets, her eyes scanning the dark water. "Simcoe’s men have been patrolling the high road since dusk, Emma. If they catch him landing tonight."

"They won't catch him," Emma said, her voice steady, carrying the quiet, stubborn iron she had inherited from a father she only saw in the lines of highly confidential, unmarked letters and once in her childhood when her Uncle Nathanial took her to Virginia to meet him, his wife, and stepchildren. "Caleb knows these waters better than he knows his own prayers. Probably better."

Right on cue, the dark hull of a whaleboat cut through the mist. A massive figure stood at the bow, leaping into the thigh-high surf before the boat even grounded on the sand.

Caleb Brewster shook himself like an English Mastiff, spraying saltwater everywhere, a booming laugh cut short only by his own sense of survival.

"Tell me you brought the cider, little sister," Caleb grinned, his heavy boots squelching as he hauled the boat further up the sand. He didn't look like a guardian of the realm's deepest secret; he looked like a rogue who lived to tweak the King's nose and tell the tale of it. "The regulars are crawling all over the opposite shore. Thought I’d have to row the long way round through the bloody shoals."

"I brought bread and a cold shoulder if you don't keep your voice down," Emma chided, though the knot of anxiety in her chest loosened the moment she stepped forward. Not hesitating, she hit his shoulder with a hard, sisterly fist before wrapping her arms around his damp neck.

Caleb caught her in a bone-crushing hug, lifting her feet right off the mud. To the rest of Setucket, they were the Brewster orphans, the wild boy and the sharp-tongued girl who managed to survive on grit and fish. But as Caleb let her down, his hand lingered on her shoulder, his thumb pressing firmly through the wool of her shawl—a silent reassurance. You're safe. The secret is safe.

"Where’s Abe?" Caleb asked, his tone shifting, dropping into the low register reserved for the ring.

"Waiting at the Whitehall with Woodhull Senior," Emma said, checking over her shoulder toward the distant, flickering lights of the village. "Simcoe has quartered his Rangers at the church. It’s getting tight, Caleb. Abe's jumping at his own shadow, and Anna’s clothesline can only do so much work before the redcoats start asking why the petticoats are flying in a gale."

Caleb snorted, pulling a sealed tin tube from inside his soaked leather waistcoat. He didn't hand it to Anna, he pressed it directly into Emma’s palm.

"This one’s for the top man," Caleb muttered, his boisterous edge completely vanishing. "Direct from the city. Names of the suppliers in New York. Tallmadge will want this by Friday, Emma. He’s running the dragoon line out of Connecticut, but he’s itching to cross."

Emma took the tube, slipping it into the hidden pocket sewn deep into the folds of her petticoats. 

At the mention of Ben Tallmadge, her heart did a strange, unwelcome flutter. She had known Benjamin since they were children running wild through the Setucket brush, back when he was just the parson’s brilliant, serious boy who tried to keep her and Caleb out of trouble. Now, he was a director of intelligence, a man carrying the weight of the army on his shoulders.

"Ben's coming across?" she asked, trying to sound entirely indifferent.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed, a knowing, highly suspicious brotherly smirk spreading across his bearded face. "Aye. He is. And he’ll be looking for his chief courier. Don't go looking too pretty when he lands, Em. He’s got enough on his mind without staring at Caleb Brewster’s sister like he’s forgotten his own orders."

"Oh, go back to your boat, Caleb," Emma snapped, her cheeks burning despite the cold wind. "Ben thinks of me as a nuisance who used to steal his apples."

"Keep telling yourself that," Caleb chuckled, pinching her cheek affectionately before turning back to the whaleboat. "Anna, get the laundry down. Emma, get that tin to the root cellar. The storm’s coming, and it isn't just the rain."

Emma watched her brother push back out into the gray surf, his silhouette disappearing into the fog within seconds. She pressed her hand against her skirt, feeling the hard metal cylinder against her thigh.

A letter for the General. A letter for her father.

Turning back toward the dark paths of Setucket, Emma braced herself. The occupation was tightening its grip, the redcoats were at the gates, and Benjamin Tallmadge was on his way.

The walk back from the shoreline was a masterclass in holding one’s breath.

Emma kept her pace steady, her boots clicking against the damp earth of the high road just loud enough to sound like a girl heading home from an evening’s chores, but no louder. Every few yards, the dark silhouette of a red-coated sentry would map itself against the distant fires of the Presbyterian church. Simcoe’s Rangers were everywhere tonight, perched like vultures on the fences, their bayonets catching the weak moonlight.

She kept her hand casually dropped against the fold of her skirt, her fingers brushing the cold, unyielding curve of the tin tube hidden in her petticoats.

Whitehall, the home of the judge and now of Major Hewellett loomed out of the fog like a sanctuary that had forgotten how to be safe. The windows were shuttered tight, but the weak, yellow bleed of candlelight escaped the cracks in the timber. Emma didn't use the front door. She slipped around the side, ducking past the rain barrels, and eased the heavy cellar storm door open. It groaned—a low, terrifying scrape of wood on stone—before she stepped down into the dark, suffocating warmth of the root cellar.

The space smelled of damp earth, rotting potatoes, and cider vinegar.

"Caleb?"

The voice was a frantic, threadbare whisper that flew out of the darkness near the apple crates.

Abraham Woodhull stepped into the weak light of a single tallow candle he had shielded with his palm. He was pale—paler than usual—his hair slightly disheveled, his coat buttoned askew. His eyes were wide, snapping frantically toward the stairs as if he expected Captain Simcoe himself to drop through the ceiling.

"It's me, Abe. Calm yourself before you blow out the damn candle," Emma murmured, her voice a low, steady anchor in the dark. She threw off her damp wool shawl, her golden hair catching the amber glow.

Abe let out a jagged breath, his shoulders sagging, though his hands continued to tremble against his waistcoat. "You were gone too long. I told Anna before, that the patrols were shifting down by the spit. If they had found you out there,"

"They didn't find me," Emma interrupted gently, though the iron in her jaw was unmistakable. She reached into her petticoats and pulled out the sealed metal cylinder, the surface slick with saltwater. "Caleb made the crossing. He says it’s direct from the city. Names of the Crown’s manufacturing suppliers in New York."

Abe looked at the tin tube as if it were a loaded pistol. He didn't reach for it immediately. "New York. Clinton’s inner circle is tightening the leash, Emma. My father was upstairs just an hour ago talking with the British officers. They’re looking for a leak. They know someone is carrying letters across the Sound."

"Then it’s a good thing they think Caleb is just a smuggler who fancies tea and gin," Emma said crisply. She didn't wait for Abe's panic to curdle into inaction. She knelt by the loose stone foundation near the back wall—the hidden shelf she and Caleb had chiseled out when they were children hiding stolen apples from the parson. She slid the tin tube deep into the dark recess, packing the loose dirt and mortar back into place with a practiced efficiency. "Ben Tallmadge is crossing by Friday to collect it."

Abe flinched at the name. "Tallmadge doesn't understand the parameters here. He sits in his high-and-mighty Continental camp running dragoon lines, demanding numbers and troop movements, while we are the ones living beneath the bayonets. One wrong move from Benjamin, and Simcoe will string my father up from the church rafters."

Emma stood up, brushing the cellar dirt from her palms. She stepped closer to Abe, her blue eyes narrowing with a fierce, protective edge that belonged entirely to the brother who had helped raise her.

"Benjamin understands the stakes better than anyone, Abe," she said, her voice dropping into a quiet, lethal whisper. "He knows what happens if this ring falls. But he also knows that if we don't give the General those supplier names, the army starves in the highlands before the winter even breaks. We don't have the luxury of being afraid."

Abe stared at her, his jaw working as he took in her composure. To the rest of the town, she was just the spitfire Brewster orphan—the wild girl who managed her brother's house with a sharp tongue and a cold shoulder. But right now, standing in the dim light of the cellar, she looked like a commander.

"You're too much like him," Abe muttered, a strange, hollow look crossing his face. "You look at the war like it’s a chess match, Emma. Like Caleb does."

"Caleb fights to keep this town alive, Abe. And so do I," Emma said, reaching out to place a firm hand on his trembling shoulder, squeezing tightly to ground him. "Go back upstairs. Sit with your father. Drink your ale and let the redcoats think you're the boring, loyalist farmer they want you to be. I’ll keep watch for the midnight tide."

Abe nodded slowly, swallowing his panic as he blew out the candle, plunging the root cellar back into absolute darkness. The heavy thud of his boots ascending the wooden stairs left Emma alone in the black.

She leaned her head against the stone wall, the damp chill seeping into her skin. The letter was stashed. Abe was holding, barely. And somewhere out on the dark, churning waters of the Sound, Benjamin Tallmadge was rowing toward her. But first she had to sit through dinner at Whitehall with the Woodhulls, Major Hewlett, and Simcoe. She had been to Whitehall many times as a child, mostly at Mrs. Whitehull’s insistence, she didn’t want the girl to end up as a ruffian like her older brother, she needed a mother's influence. 

***

The dining room at Whitehall smelled of roasted venison, expensive claret, and the suffocating tension of an occupied town.

Emma sat near the foot of the long mahogany table, her posture flawless, her spine never once touching the back of her high-backed chair. She wore a simple dress of dove-gray wool—the finest she owned—but she wore it as if it were the finest silk from a London dressmaker. Her golden hair was pinned back with a quiet, elegant precision, catching the warm, flickering glow of the silver candelabras.

To her left, Judge Woodhull sat stiffly, his fingers white-knuckle tight around his wine glass. Across from her sat Major Edmund Hewlett, his red coat immaculate, looking thoroughly pleased to have a refined young woman softening the edges of his military outpost. Little Thomas who was still struggling with his cough wanted to sit on her lap, to him she was just a lady visiting for dinner, she was his Aunt Emmy and she didn’t mind holding him on her lap or letting him go into her pockets and finding the little peppermints that she always had stashed in there. 

And at the head of the table, his pale eyes gleaming like flint in the candlelight, sat Captain John Simcoe.

"A toast," Major Hewlett announced, raising his glass with an old-world, aristocratic flourish. "To the hospitality of Setucket, and to Mistress Brewster, who has grace enough to make us forget we are quartered in a wilderness."

"Hear, hear," Judge Woodhull muttered quickly, desperate to keep the peace.

Emma offered a small, polite smile, bowing her head just a fraction of an inch. "You are too kind, Major Hewlett. Setucket may be a quiet town, but we understand the respect due to the Crown’s officers."

"Do you?"

The voice was thin, sharp, and cut through the warmth of the room like a razor.

Captain Simcoe set his glass down with a slow, deliberate click. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his clasped hands, his eyes locked onto Emma’s face. He had been watching her all evening—watching the way she used her fork, the way she spoke, the way she refused to flinch whenever his Rangers marched past the windows.

"I find it fascinating, Mistress Brewster," Simcoe purred, his smile cold and empty. "For a girl raised by a wild, boisterous privateer of a brother, you possess the manners of a courtier. The way you hold yourself... the way you speak. It is not the breeding of a Long Island fish market."

Beside the sideboard, Abraham Woodhull froze, a decanter of wine trembling in his hand.

Emma felt the cold, unyielding curve of the tin tube hidden deep within her petticoats—buried just an hour ago beneath the root cellar floorboards. But as she looked at Simcoe, the memory of her childhood trip to Virginia flared white-hot in her mind. She remembered her father standing in the parlor of Mount Vernon, his shoulders broad, his presence commanding the entire room. She was a Washington. She would not tremble for a captain of the Rangers.

"My brother Caleb may be a man of the sea, Captain Simcoe," Emma said, her voice a steady, freezing blade that stunned the table. "But our family has deep roots in the colonies. My uncle Nathaniel took great care with my education. He taught me that a lady’s grace is her shield, no matter how rough the world around her might be."

Simcoe’s eyes narrowed, a dangerous, hyper-vigilant curiosity flaring in his gaze. He tilted his head, his cane leaning against the edge of his chair like a sleeping weapon. "A shield. Fascinating choice of words. Most country girls curtsy and weep when my men patrol the roads. But you look at me, Mistress Brewster, as if you are the one holding the gavel."

"Captain Simcoe, really," Hewlett interrupted, his brow furrowing with a gentleman’s irritation. "Must you interrogate our dinner guests as if they are rebel spies? Mistress Brewster has been nothing but a credit to this parish."

"I am merely admiring her spine, Major," Simcoe replied softly, his eyes never leaving Emma’s face. He leaned back, a thin, toxic smile parting his lips. "It is a rare thing in a rebel nest. Let us hope it remains sturdy when the winter quotas arrive."

Emma met his gaze directly, her blue eyes flashing with pure, unadulterated grit. "My spine is entirely unbroken, Captain. I assure you."

The front door of Whitehall suddenly rattled, the heavy brass knocker echoing through the hallway. A young dragoon courier stepped into the dining room, his blue coat splattered with mud, his chest heaving as he saluted Major Hewlett.

"Report," Hewlett commanded, standing up.

"The midnight tide is turning, sir," the courier breathed. "Patrols report movement down by the old orchard lines. Major Tallmadge’s dragoons have been spotted near the Connecticut shore. They think he's preparing to cross."

Emma’s heart did a strange, violent flutter against her ribs at the mention of Ben's name. She kept her face an absolute mask of stone, but her hand quietly dropped to the fold of her skirt, her fingers brushing the fabric where the secret lived.

Simcoe stood up slowly, his cane tapping against the floorboards with a terrifying, rhythmic thud-clack. He looked down the length of the table at Emma, his smile widening into something deeply menacing.

"Well, then," Simcoe whispered. "It seems our evening's entertainment has just begun. Excuse us, Mistress Brewster. Duty calls."

As the officers strapped on their sabers and hurried out into the dark fog, Emma finally let out the breath she’d been holding, dropping her face into Thomas’s baby soft hair before she looked across the table at a pale, panicked Abe. The tin tube was safe in the dark below, Simcoe was hunting, and Benjamin Tallmadge was officially on his way.

The heavy front door of Whitehall slammed shut, the echo rattling the silver candelabras on the long mahogany table. Outside, the muffled shouting of redcoats and the sharp, rhythmic thud-clack of Simcoe’s cane faded down the gravel path, leaving the dining room suffocated by a terrifying, sudden silence.

Abraham Woodhull dropped the wine decanter onto the sideboard with a violent clatter, ruby-red claret sloshing over the polished wood like fresh blood. He turned to Emma, his face entirely drained of color, his hands shaking so hard he had to grip the back of Judge Woodhull’s vacant chair to keep his footing.

"He knows," Abe hissed, his voice a frantic, strangled whisper as he lunged toward her end of the table. "Emma, Simcoe knows. Did you see his eyes? He was looking right through your cover. And now Ben—Ben is rowing straight into a slaughter."

"Ben is not an idiot, Abraham," Emma said, though she finally let her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch, the tight, suffocating corset of high-society etiquette loosening. She rose from her wicker chair, her dove-gray wool skirts rustling in the quiet room sitting Thomas in her empty chair, her blue eyes hardening. "He won't land blind if the patrols are active."

"He’s crossing at the old orchard line!" Abe panicked, his breathing shallow as he paced the length of the table, running a frantic hand through his disheveled hair. "Simcoe took three full squads of Rangers with him. If Ben lands his whaleboat on the shingle with thirty redcoats waiting in the brush, they’ll hang him before the sun breaks. They’ll hang us all."

Emma didn't answer right away. She walked to the dark sash window, carefully parting the heavy velvet curtains just enough to peer out into the swirling Setucket fog. The village was black, save for the flickering torches of the Queen's Rangers mobilizing near the church.

The weight of her hidden bloodline—the heavy, unyielding iron of George Washington—settled deep into her spine. She wasn't just Caleb Brewster's little sister tonight. She was the anchor of her father’s secret.

"Anna's clothesline," Emma murmured, her eyes fixed on the distant silhouette of Whitehall’s perimeter fence. "Can she get a signal up before Simcoe reaches the bluffs?"

"No," Abe choked out, stopping his pacing, his chest heaving. "Anna is at the dower house with her uncle. By the time I walk across the parish to find her, the Rangers will have already secured the shoreline. Emma, we have no time. We have no time."

Emma turned back to face him, the amber candlelight catching the fierce, sharp clarity in her blue eyes. "Then I am going."

Abe stared at her as if she had lost her mind. "You? Are you mad? Simcoe just spent the last hour trying to measure your neck for a rope! If he catches you on the high road past curfew—"

"If he catches you, Abraham, the Culper Ring dies tonight," Emma interrupted, her voice a low, steady blade that cut through his mounting hysteria. She stepped away from the window, marching purposefully toward the side door that led to the root cellar stairs. "Major Hewlett believes I am a respectable lady of this parish. If I am spotted near the orchard, I can claim a lost horse or a midnight stroll to clear my head after a tense dinner. You cannot."

She didn't wait for his permission. She slipped through the service door and descended into the dark, damp warmth of the root cellar, her fingers navigating the blackness with absolute precision. She bypassed the hidden stone where the New York supplier tin was buried, reaching instead for the heavy wool cloak Caleb had left hidden behind the cider casks.

When she ascended back into the dining room, she threw the dark hood over her spun-gold hair, tying the ribbons with a steady, unbreakable focus.

"Listen to me, Abe," Emma said, grabbing him by the coat lapels, forcing his frantic gaze to lock onto hers. "Go back to your father’s house. Sit by the fire. If Hewlett comes back looking for a report, you tell him I retired to my chambers with a headache from the claret. Do you understand me?"

Abe swallowed hard, looking at the fierce determination on her face. For the first time, he didn't just see a stubborn Setucket girl; he saw the untouchable grit of the Commander-in-Chief himself. "Emma, if Ben doesn't make it..."

"He will make it," Emma whispered, her jaw setting into that unmistakable line of Washington iron. "Because I am going to stop him."

She didn't use the front doors. Emma slipped out the side entrance of Whitehall, stepping directly into the freezing, salt-thick fog of the Long Island Sound. The wind bit at her cheeks, and the distant, rhythmic thud-clack of Simcoe's hunt echoed over the hills, but Emma didn't look back.