“Oh, a splendid plan! When shall we leave?”
He paused, picking up an English clay pipe with a pinwheel maker’s mark on the heel. “Half past five, mayhap? By shallop, not overland, if the river’s becalmed.”
“I’ll be ready. Perhaps a bowl of early strawberries would be welcome. Selah spoke of deer ravaging theirs last I saw her.”
“Strawberries, aye. I believe the Hopewells are to host a tobacco bride. You’ll be among the first to meet her, whoever she is.”
This had the intended effect. She clasped her hands together with childish delight. With that, she left him, returning to the kitchen to do whatever aging aunts did, leaving him to pinpoint exactly why he hadn’t stayed longer at the docks.
Because he was a widower of two years.
Nay, most men remarried within weeks.
Because the wind was cold.
Nay, the wind was the warmest he’d felt since last autumn.
Because he disliked James Towne.
True enough, aye. But more so because the one woman who unsettled him so oft of late had such mesmerizing eyes...
2
“Daughter, we are to have company, your father tells me. Can you pick some posies from the garden?” Candace Hopewell’s gaze swung from Selah to their housemaid. “Izella, set two more places at table, please.”
As Izella disappeared into the dining room, Selah turned toward her mother, pulled from her preoccupation with the tobacco brides. “Two, you say?”
“Master Renick and his aunt, Widow Brodie, likely. You know how fond she is of company. ’Tis been hard on her leaving Scotland for a more rusticated life here.”
“Why this unusual supper invitation?”
“Business.” Candace opened the bake oven and released the aroma of wheaten bread.
Business. What else could it be? Selah’s orderly train of thought took a tumble as she passed out a side door to do her mother’s bidding. Xander Renick’s preoccupation—obsession—with business trumped everything and made him guilty in her eyes of more than one mercenary charge. Yet her father favored him. And Xander oft sought herfather’s counsel, an honor bestowed to precious few in fractious James Towne.
As always, the garden’s earthy scent cleared her kitchen-sated senses. Sadly, the soil was not fully awake and there would be no armful of summer’s best. Walking the crushed shell paths, she perused April’s timid offerings. Golden ragwort and fleabane and dwarf irises alongside an abundance of greenery. June’s bounty only beckoned.
Yet her mind was not on blooms but on the fine points of Master Renick’s company. Did this mean he had come out of mourning at long last? Selah picked several shooting stars fit for their table and buried her face in the mostly scentless blooms.
Perhaps he’d reconsidered taking a tobacco bride. Or her father had persuaded him. Lord knew Rose-n-Vale needed a mistress. Raising her gaze, Selah focused on the bedchamber window of Cecily Ward. Might Cecily suit? For all she knew, matrimony might be the matter her mother had mentioned.
An interesting assemblage graced their supper table. Ustis presided with his usual good humor and candor, thus talk was never dull. Even though he’d been a bit wan of late, slowly recovering from a severe winter’s cold, the malady hadn’t dimmed his spirits. And with so many hands in the kitchen, the table boasted early English peas and new potatoes, mounded into their best stoneware bowls. Shay, also in fine fettle, regaled them with tales of whale sightings and theSeaflowerbeing pursued by a Spanish galleon till they’d outrun the enemy on a favorable wind.
If not for company, Selah would have stayed riveted,rooted to her place in their oak-paneled dining room amid the gentle flicker of candlelight. But tonight, with the click of utensils scraping pewter plates and the men’s tankards being refilled with ale, she and her mother and Izella wove in and out, finally serving dessert, a custard sweetened with West Indies cane sugar and crowned with candied lemon peel and the strawberries Xander’s aunt had brought. Such a delicacy raised Cecily’s russet brows.
“For our guests.” Candace smiled as Izella served them. “Especially for Cecily Ward as we welcome her to Virginia.”
Clearly enjoying being the center of attention, Cecily sampled a spoonful and pronounced it sublime. “I’d never thought to taste such a wonder in the New World.”
Her pretty speech only added to her comely appearance. Red-haired and jade-eyed, she looked more Scots than English, a mystery soon solved.
“My mother, God rest her, was from the Highlands. She never lost her Scots speech even after marrying my father and making her home in England.” Her gaze traveled round the table in turn as if assessing each of them before resting on Xander. “I heard there were Scotsmen aplenty among the colonists here.”
“Mostly indentures. A few poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving men, libertines ...” Ustis sent a droll look Xander’s way. “Ten times more fit to spoil a commonwealth than begin one, so said our infamous founder, John Smith.”
All laughed, and Xander leaned back in his chair. He smiled in that maddening, almost apologetic way, which Selah noted with a beat of exasperation. “I am but a humble Scot, Miss Ward. The son of a silversmith from Culross in the kingdom of Fife.”
Humble Scot, indeed. Most men would boast of being a burgess and council member, tribal negotiator and foremost landowner in Tidewater Virginia ... if not ruthless tobacco lord.
