Her heart welled and then her eyes. Her arms stole around his waist, anchoring him to her, giving him a half answer. When he cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head back to look up at him, she felt little more than a puddle at his boots.
“’Twould be wise, if you’re to help manage in your father’s absence, to let Watseka accompany you some days. Consider a shop boy. In the meantime, if you or your kin need anything at all, send for me.” Reaching up, he lifted that same stray tendril and tucked it into her coif.
The longing in his gaze—did it mirror her own? She stillhad hold of his waist, though a niggle of impropriety bade her release him. Ignoring it, in a show of surrender she stood shamelessly on tiptoe, all but asking him to kiss her.
Begging.
With a chuckle deep in his throat, he brushed her forehead with his lips in a maddeningly gallant gesture. For a widower having tasted the fruits of marriage, he was a marvel of restraint. “I will not give you what you are yet unsure of, thus forming a bond between us that might well break.”
Closing her eyes again, she let the moment be what it was. Cherished the tense, excruciatingly sweet tie that begged strengthening.
“Fare thee well, Selah.”
He rode off, his horse’s hoofbeats once again no match for her thudding heart.
He’d stated his intentions toward Selah. Spent the night beneath the Hopewells’ roof. Nearly kissed her during those last heady moments alone in the warehouse. Yet he’d withheld the promise she’d not be a tobacco widow. How could he do otherwise when years of toil and ever-extending territory drove him still?
Now, three days hence, he contemplated telling her the truth about his and Mattachanna’s tangled relationship. Settle her insecurities that the memory she feared they trod upon was not what it seemed, but far more intricate and buried grave deep. Share the secret that no amount of labor and sweat or success could temper.
Such was uppermost in his mind as he inspected his tobacco fields, judging the quality and vigor of this year’s crop,which was nearing harvest. A crop that should have left him elated. No Orinoco yet had yielded so well, the color a coveted greenish-gold. England was now importing over a million pounds of leaf, Rose-n-Vale’s the leading export. Still, there was little rest, a host of unseen challenges to come, a never-ending list of goods gotten and debts settled both here and in the Old World...
Hardly time for a new bride, a returned child, and an unknown nurse.
He rode on till he came to his maize, the tasseling stalks blocking his view. Here at the cornfield’s heart with the gourdseed variety topping eighteen feet, not a leaf stirred, turning his shirt sodden before he’d escaped its suffocating grip. Planted in nearly as many acres as his tobacco, it promised food and forage for a lean winter, of which they’d had many.
He rode on, drawn to a haunting spot on the edges of Renick land. Time had turned it nearly unrecognizable save the stones and wooden crosses that marked two graves. What he’d give to have Henry Renick here to ken firsthand that his stake in the New World hadn’t been in vain. His father had lived barely the three years required to receive the lion’s share of land grants awarded those first settlers. And Xander had been with the Powhatans for most of it.
His beloved mother, pale like Selah, had been an uncommon woman, a tower of health and strength whose pride was her only son, his success the joy of her heart. But now? At five and thirty, past the prime of life, he’d best be concerned about more than tobacco, as Selah said. Build memories with those he loved rather than simply add another wing to Rose-n-Vale.
“Good day to ye, sir.”
A voice pulled him back to the present. Another of his farm managers stood by a long chain of scaffolding used to air the cut tobacco.
“We’ve finished the drying racks ahead of the harvest, as ye ken. But with so many men fevered, progress has slowed on the packing and prizing house.”
“How many are down?”
“Thirteen, mostly new arrivals.”
“Needs be we sun-cure more than fire-cure the leaf, then.” His indentures, most of them the heartiest of Scots, didn’t shirk work. His concern was their working when ill, sickening further and sometimes dying. “Another five and twenty men are coming. Though they’re inexperienced, if we train them properly they might suffice and let the ailing men recover.”
Yet Xander well knew the promise of a ship was but a dream till it docked. More than a few had been lost at sea or intercepted by Spaniards.
“We’re ready to house them, sir.”
“You’ve done well overseeing their new quarters. Is the roof finished?”
“Just this morn, aye.” The man took a long drink from his flask. “Another matter, sir. The slave traders have been by again. Wanted to part with a dozen or so Africans. Said they ken our need.”
Xander shifted in the saddle, struck by the plea to reconsider in the manager’s beleaguered face. “I’ll not sell my soul to own another’s. Not even if it means saving the harvest.”
“I won’t mention it again, sir. The Africans were sold tothe Frenchman instead. He’s begun work on the land east of ye.”
Laurent. The physic turned planter. The would-be wooer of Selah Hopewell. And now his neighbor. Looking toward the land in question, Xander schooled his reaction to the news, tantamount to a kick in the gut.
“Prepare to harvest by mid-August. Mayhap the ailing men will be recovered by then. I’ll make the rounds and see if more medicines are needed from the apothecary. There’s an able physic at Mount Malady I’ll send for.”
“Bethankit, sir.”
