“You’ve outdone yourself,” Esmée told him, admiring the smooth pine and expertly carved crowns and anchors that embellished it, even the hood meant to keep away drafts. “’Tis a cradle fit for a nobleman’s daughter.”
“Not to mention the admiral’s granddaughter.” Hat in hand, he smiled, his grizzled face shining with pride in a job enjoyed.
“Father will be pleased. I expect him any day now.”
“I’ll start work on the second bed for Master Alden.” He left, several tea cakes in hand.
The women returned to the hearth’s warmth, Esmée enjoying her hyson while rocking the cradle with her foot. Soon Ruenna was fast asleep, snug as she could be within the bed’s high, cushioned sides.
“A wee fairy she is.” Lucy passed a plate of currant cakes before sitting down and pouring herself a cup of tea. “Almost a month old, aye?”
Esmée looked at the calendar pinned to the far wall, its numerals in boldface. “Three weeks as of yesterday.”
Again her thoughts turned to Eliza and Quinn. Nary a word had come from Williamsburg. She’d expected Father before now. As for Henri, he’d been gone two months. Yet any day now she might see those linen sails she missed bearing down on the island. She turned toward the window in anticipation, expectation fragile as a spring flower inside her.
Sails were indeed in her line of sight. Two sails signifying a much smaller vessel than theIntrepid. Esmée set aside her tea, foot ceasing to rock Ruenna.
Father? At last. Did he bring good news?
She was out the door without her cape, so anxious was she to see him, only to turn around and ascertain Ruenna was still asleep and not too near the unattended hearth.
While Lucy and Alice hovered near the open door, Esmée hurried down the path to the pier. Paying scant attention to the deckhands aboard the sloop, she focused on her father. His back to her, he stood by the companionway, where a cloaked figure was emerging. Eliza?
In all black.
Eliza never wore black. She hated black. All the implications came crashing down as Father helped her onto shore. Eliza was in mourning.
Esmée’s stomach flipped. By the time she reached them, another realization nearly had her casting up her accounts and left little time to hide her horror. Eliza had stepped onto the pier and looked straight at her, her face masked by a black veil. Just then the wind caught it and exposed once-smooth skin now horribly pitted, her very eyes inflamed. Some pox victims went blind...
Lord, I cannot bear it.
Eliza’s veil settled back in place. Coming alongside her, Esmée took her arm while Father supported her on the other side. Questions Esmée couldn’t ask sat like gravel in her mouth.
The cottage door stood open, but Lucy and Alice had vanished. Helping Eliza inside, Esmée and her father led her to a fireside chair, Ruenna near in her new cradle.
“I’ll have Lucy bring you both tea.” Hardly aware of what she said or did, Esmée removed her sister’s wraps while a clatter went up in the kitchen.
Father kept on his greatcoat, his expression causing Esmée’s heart to wrench harder. He looked down at Eliza, who stared vacantly into the fire. This was not her beloved, vibrant sister. This was a shell of Eliza, a fragile, miserable echo.
“Father...” Esmée looked at him imploringly, hands spread. Was Eliza listening? “What of Quinn?” Esmée whispered.
He swallowed with difficulty and hung his cape from a wall peg. “Though he seemed to rally, by the time I returned from bringing the baby to you, he was gone.”
Gone.Such a small word for such enormous loss. It left her breathless. Quinn—an integral part of Williamsburg, from the House of Burgesses and governor’s council to titled peer and attentive host, the pride of their very lives—now lay in the Bruton Parish graveyard. His absence tore a hole in everything they knew. Now Ruenna had no father, only a sickly, grieving mother. Death was never far, but never had it felt so personal since Mama’s passing.
Numbly she watched as Lucy brought tea. Eliza said nary a word. Father took the chair beside her while Ruenna slept without stirring at one end of the hearth. Esmée felt hapless and uncertain, words of sympathy catching in her throat. Circling behind her father and Eliza, she took the empty chair by her sister, who was accepting a cup of tea from Lucy’s hands.
“Despite everything, I’m glad you’re here,” Esmée began quietly once Lucy had retreated to the kitchen. She looked to the cradle. Ruenna wore the lace and linen gown she’d come to the island in, a matching cap on her head, the strings tied loosely beneath her chin. “Your daughter is well, thankfully. She has a felicitous disposition and cries little. She—”
“Looks just like her father.” Eliza set down her cup with a clatter.
Esmée glanced at their father in a silent plea. He regarded his granddaughter with bloodshot eyes as if he’d not slept in a fortnight. What a time they’d had since they last parted. Esmée couldn’t imagine the tears and the turmoil.
Drying her eyes, Eliza returned to her tea with a visibly set jaw, a handkerchief fisted in one hand. She did not raise her veil or look Ruenna’s way again.
CHAPTER
fifty-eight
