“Your Articles of Association,” Leith replied.
She nodded, her thoughtful, calm words reaching across the room. “These articles propose a boycott on imports and exports from Britain, a ban on the slave trade, an improvementof American agriculture, and produce for colonists at reasonable prices.”
“So you would cut us out,” Spiers’s factor said, steel in his tone. “Ship solely to continental markets.”
“Such smacks of treason,” another Scots merchant said. “An irreversible break with Britain.”
“Perhaps, but the truth remains.” Her voice stayed steadfast. “No civilized people on earth have been so badly paid for their labor as the planters of Virginia. You merchants have done more mischief to the tobacco trade by your outright corruption than anything in recent history. Treason or no, an accounting of some sort is long overdue.”
Sweat broke across Leith’s brow as the warm chamber erupted with huzzahs.
At last the moderator’s aggressive pounding of his gavel quieted the room. “Let us return to the purpose of our meeting, one and all. Price setting for this season, I beg you.”
11
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
George Washington
Once a contentious price was set and the meeting adjourned, Leith accompanied his factors and clerks into the Raleigh’s dining room, where they commandeered a large table. These men, all Scots, some of them kin who’d consented to live abroad and manage the colonial stores his father established, deserved a memorable supper at least. The bountiful menu was odd if impressive. Cheshire pork pie he knew, filled with tenderloin, autumn’s apples, and Indies spices. But carrot puffs? Corn cakes? Salmagundi?
“A salat with vegetables and meat,” McCann explained of the latter. “Quite tasty, though I prefer the onion pie.”
“A trencher of chicken hash for me,” Innes said as ale was set down in towering tankards.
But Leith hardly heard them. Positioned by a window, he had a view of the Raleigh’s front porch, where a certain young woman stood on the top step, talking with severalgentlemen young and old. They seemed rapt as she spoke, much as he’d been in the Apollo Room half an hour before.
“So,” he began, taking his eyes off her, “tell me the name of the liberty-loving lass with the indigo shawl.”
Grins commenced in the wake of chuckling on all sides of him. Hendry finally said, “Miss Catesby, you mean?”
Catesby.Leith felt a punch to his gut that rivaled the one to his still-sore eye. “Does she have a forename?”
“Indeed she does,” Innes answered. “MissJulietCatesby.”
Leith took a sip of ale, feigning a calm he didn’t feel. “Daughter to Colonel Landon Catesby of Royal Vale.”
“One of them. There’s an even comelier Catesby, if you can believe that.” Hendry couldn’t stop grinning. “Younger. Quieter too.”
This brought outright laughter from all but Leith. “So the eldest is a bit of a firebrand.”
“Miss Juliet’s generally polite but a bit of a firebrand when it suits her, aye,” McCann explained, respect in his tone. “She has strong views, most of them having to do with tobacco and us factors and you merchant lords and the like.”
Amid their continued amusement, Leith looked again toward the porch as Miss Catesby left it and headed east down the congested street. She drew her tasseled silk shawl about her shoulders, passing her daybook to the maid beside her. In seconds she’d disappeared from view if not from memory.
“She lodges at the widow Campbell’s when she’s in town and dines at the club there, a private room reserved for the best guests away from the gaming tables.” Innes drew a sleeve across his upper lip, removing the ale’s froth. “A bit more refined for genteel lasses.”
“You ken an uncommon amount about her,” Leith told him.
Flushing, Innes took another sip. “She comes to the Upper and Lower James stores oft enough on business for her father. Royal Vale sits betwixt the two. Sometimes she brings her sister, Miss Loveday.”
Leith rolled this over in his mind, trying to come to terms with his new Virginia view. When he was behind his desk in Glasgow, American matters seemed more mundane, reduced to columns and sums, though their politics were fraught. Here, amid all the color and confusion of the colonies, his simplistic stance shifted. Much had changed in the decade he’d been away. He’d had no recollection of the Catesbys back then. Royal Vale had not been the force it was now.
“So, what is your plan, sir?” McCann asked as dinner was served atop shiny pewter platters. “Rather, how long will you be in Virginia?”
Long enough to avoid news print and let the curfuffle at home die down.
“Until business is done to my satisfaction.” Leith cut into his tenderloin, his stomach rumbling. “I plan to visit each store, meet with the planters my Glasgow clerks correspond with and you deal with regularly. I may go to the northern neck—Maryland.”
