Shrinking from his touch, Selah led him to more coveted items. “These lambskin gloves here? Or perhaps this blue vial of toilet water?” She refused to lift her eyes to his. “Why not purchase both and let the lady herself decide?”
He laughed. “Well played by the cape merchant’s daughter. Are you always so pecuniary, Mistress Hopewell?”
“If you mean am I trying to pick your pocket, sir, nay.” She moved away from him, relief flooding her when the shop door opened with a jingle and another customer entered in.
To her disdain, Laurent went out without so much as an adieu and bought nothing. Nothing at all.
4
“Father, I must go to Mother for a spell.” Selah fled through the store’s back door toward the outskirts of town, seeking their timbered house with its well-laid garden of four acres. Mulberry trees, planted when the colony was first founded, offered shade on all sides.
Candace was already at her labors, uprooting stones and thistles. She raised a hand to shade her eyes when Selah hurried through the low gate attached to the paling fence. She straightened. “Is something the matter, Daughter?”
Winded, Selah sank onto a low bench. “I’ve just sold a bill of goods to Xander, who’s en route to Menmend.”
Candace’s brow furrowed as she sat down beside her daughter, hoe forgotten. “Well, that is certainly news. Whether good or ill, I do not know.”
“Father questioned him about the wisdom of such a journey, but he seems intent.”
“Such is Xander’s way. Determined. Resolute. But let us consider facts over feelings. He lived with them as a lad in a peace exchange, speaks their language, even married into their tribe. Chief Opechancanough is Mattachanna’s kin.And Xander is held in high esteem by the Powhatans when few white men are.”
“Glad I am of that, but since Mattachanna’s death, the peace their marriage brought has been repeatedly broken. No colonist seems safe.”
“Not all the treachery can be laid at the Powhatans’ door. The colonists’ hands are also stained with blood.”
“Will it never end?” Selah looked west, past newly leafed trees that rustled in the coastal wind. “I pray for peace, but peace does not come.”
“What stake have you personally in this?” Candace asked. “Rarely are you so flustered.”
Selah lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “A great many brave men have perished. I pray he is not among them.”
“I agree. But my motherly instincts tell me your concern is of special note.”
Withholding a sigh, Selah pondered her reply, trying to make sense of her tangled feelings. “’Tis for little Oceanus, I fear. He should not lose both father and mother.”
“Oceanus may well have forgotten his father by now, being raised by his Scots kin so far from our shores. Though I do recall your father saying Xander recently spoke of returning him to Rose-n-Vale now that Widow Brodie is there.”
At once hope took wing, only to be tempered by truth. “I wonder if his dear aunt, aging as she is, would have any more patience with a child than with those hounds of his.”
“If he were to remarry, his aunt wouldn’t be so taxed,” Candace said, plucking a burr from her apron. “I might ask your father to speak with him about a tobacco bride. Cecily is certainly smitten. Then Oceanus would have a stepmother and could come home for good.”
“Cecily? I fear she is...” Selah groped for the right words yet couldn’t deny Xander asking about her. “Unsuited to him.”
“Is she? Why not let Xander and Cecily make that determination?”
“Oh, aye,” Selah murmured, trying to quiet herself as something green and vile gripped her belly. “Father warned me not to become personally involved in the brides’ choices, nor let my prejudices or partialities show.”
“Wise, aye.” Candace studied her daughter more intently. “What else has transpired to leave you on shaky ground?”
There was no escaping her mother’s scrutiny. “The physic, Laurent, came to the store, probing into Xander’s business. The ill will betwixt them fairly crackled.”
Candace took a breath. “They have ever been at odds for reasons unknown to us. Helion Laurent is not highly favored in the colony, though he is powerfully placed.”
“I do wonder at their animosity. Mayhap—”
A door slammed. The rising wind snatched Selah’s words away.
Cecily appeared all a-fluster at the back of the house. “I am sorry I have overslept—”
