Humming a song learned at sea, Shay passed through an adjoining door to a side room where transactions were once made with visiting tribes. A new trading post had been established north of them along the Chickahominy Path, but the latest treaty forbade any cloth, cotton, or other goods be supplied to the Naturals. Though the walls of old James Fort had come down—literally fallen into disrepair and used for firewood in years past—the invisible barriers between Naturals and English still stood stalwart and unsettling.
Some dared to bridge the distance. Those with the mettle of Xander Renick.
As she thought it, the front door’s bell sang out. Though it was early, with light barely peeping over the eastern horizon and illuminating their counter, he was their first customer. Beyond the open door stood his saddle horse, a handsome black. She wondered its name. She knew its reputation. Gotten from Massachusetts, this hardy breed was said to pace a mile in under two minutes, oft traveling upwards of eighty miles in a single day.
“Good day to you, Mistress Hopewell.” He removed his dark felt hat, his gaze canted toward her. Or was it the wares she’d recently shelved behind her?
For a second he hovered on the threshold, sunlight framing him. Though he’d come through their door countless times, he still managed to make a lasting impression. Blame it on his unusual mode of dress, she guessed. A long linen shirt absent of the ruffles so popular with more foppish men draped his upper body, his lower clad in buckskin breeches, his long legs encased in black leather boots. He’d discarded his doublet, a style of dress she’d never liked, in favor of a looser weskit. Not the common dress of field hands but hardly that of a gentleman. His beard was trimmed, shadowing his jaw in neat angles, a hint of Scots red within.
“Good morning, Master Renick.” She looked to the fragile item she held, nearly forgetting about it. “Are you in fine fettle this Wednesday morn?”
“Aye,” he returned brusquely. “I’ve need of a quantity of trade goods. The better sort.”
“I doubt you’ve come for these porcelain cups.” She returned the last to the shelf as he recited what was needed.
“A large quantity of Venetian glass and Cádiz beads, enough to fill two knapsacks. Nine dozen copper pendants.Small tools. As many brass thimbles as you have. An assortment of buttons. Sewing needles and linen thread. Some glass play-pretties.”
“For the children?” she asked, reaching for an assortment of tiny angels and animals. She began assembling the requested items, counting and miscounting, glad to have something to do other than stand mindlessly before him and fix him further in her thoughts.
He signed for the goods to be paid in tobacco, his signet ring glinting on his right hand. His signature was as striking as all the rest of him, theXboldest of all. She wondered that he never signedAlexander, his given name.Renickwas an illegible blot of swirling ink save theR.
“So, Mistress Hopewell, how goes the courting in town?” He gave her that unsettling half smile as he was so wont to do.
A peculiar warmth drenched her as she continued gathering his goods beneath his scrutiny. “Wise you are to be in the country, sir. James Towne’s air positively throbs with the heartfelt palpitations of men and women hurtling toward matrimony.”
His robust laugh ended abruptly with the opening of the belled door. All levity vanished as Helion Laurent’s gaze landed on the goods atop the broad counter. Selah resisted the urge to sweep them all into the waiting knapsacks. If she’d been but a few seconds faster...
“Monsieur Renick, I have seen you little about James Towne of late.”
Laurent’s voice, as richly layered as a French patisserie, resounded in the still room. ’Twas the only thing Selah liked about him. That and his sonorous name, seemingly pulled from the pages of a French fairy tale. His attire, from hissilver-threaded doublet to the large rosettes on his boots, bespoke his genteel standing in James Towne and his last journey to France.
He drew closer, subtle accusation in his tone. “Going over to the Indians? And Mademoiselle Hopewell is aiding you, I see.”
“My business is none of yours,” Xander replied evenly, gaze never lifting from the purchased goods. “And Mistress Hopewell is simply doing my bidding.”
With a dismissive snort, Laurent sauntered about, examining the merchandise, occasionally reaching out to touch some new or novel item. Eventually he stilled before the apothecary jars along a far wall, the tools of his trade as colony physic. But what he dispensed Selah wanted nothing of.
Quickly, she packed up what Xander bought, taking care not to damage his wares.
The sudden, protracted silence brought her father out of his accounting room at the back of the store. “Well, Xander. You are about your business early.”
“A fine ride to town on a May morn,” he replied. “This wind makes water travel chancy.”
“Indeed.” Ustis’s gaze took in the burgeoning knapsacks. “Though your purchases might fare better by shallop.”
Selah reached out a discreet hand and pressed her father’s arm in warning. Realizing Laurent was in their midst, Ustis recovered quickly, taking up a knapsack and accompanying Xander out the door. Selah followed.
Standing out on the dusty street, well beyond overhearing, Ustis spoke his mind. “Tobacco is not your only business, aye? You are journeying to the Powhatans. But not in your official role of emissary since I see no pearl chain about yourneck.” Spying a pendant on the ground, a favorite of the tribes, he stooped to return it to its sack. “Need I remind you that no man shall purposely go to any Indian towns, habitation, or places of resort without leave from the governor or commander of that place where he lives...”
Xander finished reciting colony law. “...upon pain of paying forty shillings to public uses as aforesaid.”
Ustis stood and adjusted his spectacles. “Granted, forty shillings is a pittance to a tobacco lord.”
“I would rather pay thrice that than ask high-minded Governor Harvey’s permission.”
Selah drew nearer, the scent of horseflesh strong. “Father, you forget yourself.” At his blank stare she said quietly, “You are speaking to the recently appointed commander of his shire.”
“Ah, of course.” Ustis looked to Xander as if seeing him in a new light. “And as such you are free to go and do as you please. With certain limitations.”
