All characters involved in sexual activities in this story are over the age of 18
*****
9: Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony: AD1773
Bethanny and Humility
It always came back to tea. Tea seemed to be the hotbed topic amidst the cafes and salons of the thriving Massachusetts town of Boston that year. Humility Price, daughter of the wealthy merchant Arnold Price, had just about had enough of the infernal brown liquid that had so captured everyone's attention. Every newspaper, broadsheet and gossip column seemed to be fixated on the tariffs, taxes and trade of tea in the colonies and back in England. And Humility, being a smart educated young lady, watched and listened as much as she could.
As far as she could work out, everyone wasn't really angry about tea. The tea was just a metaphor, a cover for the much bigger problems of their little colony on the western shore of the Atlantic. There was a lot of talk about 'no taxation without representation', parliamentary authority in the colonies and stealth taxation.
Even though she was only nineteen, Humility had read enough about the world, to know that it was all just a load of overblown hoo-hah over nothing. The men who ran the government, the Empire and indeed, she supposed, the entire world were merely puffing up their chests and jutting their jaws at each other across the ocean, neither backing down for fear of losing face. There was probably a perfectly reasonable and sensible solution to the whole sordid mess, but things would probably come to blows before anyone was calm enough to see it.
But, it seemed, there was very little that Humility could do about it. Or any woman for that matter, her sex was expected to be quiet, demure and domestic, not opinionated or outspoken. So for now she sipped her bitter coffee, freshly imported by the Dutch, and looked over the rim of her cup and her glasses to read her paper. She allowed the words from the page to wash over and through her and cocoon her in a peaceful closed-off world of her newspaper, fresh off the press that morning.
Although she had been born in England, Humility never remembered seeing the homeland, as she and her family had moved to the colonies when she was only two years old. Her father's successful paper making and trading business had flourished in Boston, and she had been brought up, if not in luxury, then at least in comfortable peace. And what with paper being her father's stock and trade, she had had nearly unlimited access to books, journals, papers and all manner of printed word, that she had ravenously devoured from an early age. She was considered by all who knew her to be a devilishly intelligent girl, if quiet and closed off, having few friends or acquaintances in the Boston social circles.
She had been invited to many parties and social gatherings by others of her age that she had been encouraged to mingle with. Humility found these dinners and dances and promenades exhausting most of the time, and inevitably ended up leaving early to seek the solace of solitude and her books. It was for this reason, and perhaps others, that she had yet to be proposed to by any of the young men who had occasionally come sniffing around her father's business. It seemed that her closed off nature and quick wit were always a little too much to handle for these boisterous, dull men. Frankly, Humility was happier without them.
She certainly looked like she lived up to her name though. Currently, she was seated in a comfortable corner booth in one of Boston's many bustling coffee shops. Her long mousy-blonde hair was up in a sensible high bun behind her head, tied with a blue ribbon. Her face was poised in a look of mild concentration as her blue-grey eyes flitted back and forth across the page, her brow slightly furrowed and her thin pink lips pursed. She was wearing a high-necked, long pale blue gown which hugged her thin waistline and narrow hips very sensibly. She sat with her right leg crossed over her left, as her long slender arm reached down to her coffee cup for another sip.
For those around her, the figure of Humility in the corner booth was a regular fixture of the coffee shop. Dead to everyone but the characters in her book or the news in the paper, she would sit there and drink coffee either until she ran out of pages or refills.
It was therefore quite a shock to Humility when a loud, ugly shout of alarm rose up from outside and she looked up briefly to see several young men run past the window, shouting something to the people behind them. The next moment there was a bang as the door to the shop burst open and a young woman ran into the establishment in a flurry of skirts, loose hair and autumn wind.
The young woman took one quick glance around the main room, as everyone stared at her in shock, before her eyes alighted on the empty seat at the table next to Humility and strode purposefully towards her.
Humility regarded this strange creature with intrigue and fascination over the top of her reading glasses. The young woman was not like any creature she had ever seen before. She was neither the model of the prim and proper ladies of society that her mother was always encouraging her to fraternise with. Nor was she the rough and red-faced fishwife or serving wench that inhabited the lower strata of society.
The young woman now approaching Humility's table was wearing a most peculiar set of clothes. What looked to be a set of loose, billowy trousers which gathered at the heel. To reveal the dirt-stained boots on her admittedly dainty feet. On top she was wearing a well fitted, maroon coloured jacket, with open-necked blouse underneath. Her hair was long and dark, but currently tied up in a loose ponytail behind her head, but several strands had broken loose and hung like unruly vines down over her face. Her face was firm and determined looking, her skin was pale olive brown, and her eyes were rimmed with dark makeup giving her a fierce and intense expression.
Without waiting to be asked, the strange woman sat down in the armchair next to Humility and placed a golden sovereign on the table.
'This is for you, gorgeous. Keep it, let me borrow your paper and stay quiet, please.'
Humility was too shocked to even reply, she looked down at the gold coin which had been placed on the table with her mouth open, before looking back up at her peculiar new seatmate, and then back down at the coin. Without waiting to be asked, the woman reached over and pulled the paper gently but firmly out of Humility's fingers, she was too taken-aback to resist. And then the woman sat back in the armchair and held the paper up in front of her face, as if studying its contents intensely.
Humility had just about regained her wits enough to protest at this woman's rude intrusion into her afternoon, when there was another bang as the door swung open once more. In stepped two red-coated infantrymen wielding muskets strode into the coffee shop. Humility noticed her new companion tense up slightly at the sound of their leather boots on the stone floor, and just at the edge of hearing she heard her whisper,
'Don't tell them I'm here... please.'
There was a slight tremor in the voice. Humilty's heart rate increased slightly. She knew that she should just alert the infantrymen as to where the woman was sitting, but at the same time she had read about the severe beating and punishments laid out to those who defied the King's men. Did she really want to be responsible for sending this young woman beside her to prison, or perhaps worse? And, she found herself peculiarly intrigued by the strange individual, she was exciting and devious. Something stirred within Humility, a curiosity for this woman, why was she on the run from these lobsterbacks? Could it be something terrible? Was she harbouring a violent criminal right now?
'Why are they looking for you?' She furtively whispered back, whilst keeping her eyes on the soldiers. 'What did you do?
