“I ask that you forsake all trade built upon the backs of slaves.”
His jaw hardened. She saw it and she hated it. His entire empire was built on rum and sugar, tobacco and misery.
“Yet you yourself are from a slave-owning family, Miss Catesby, while I own none.”
A flash of white-hot fury swept through her. “My father owns slaves, Mr. Buchanan. I do not. And if we’re to haveany semblance of a relationship, you must find more noble ways of enriching yourself at the expense of others.”
“Diversify, you mean.”
“Let Nathaniel Ravenal be your example. Many inside and outside Virginia are doing the same. He’s no longer in debt and has a clear conscience.”
“I’m not here to discuss Ravenal, admirable as he is. Our marital arrangement is a way to cancel a debt with very generous terms.” He leaned back in his chair, hands curving over its wooden scallop-shell arms. Confident. Unconcerned. The glint of his signet ring—of the very design that had sealed the bond owed, the one she’d found on Father’s desk—caught her eye. Another reminder that she had little voice in the matter.
“I sense there is far more that needs discussing. What else would be required of me as your wife?”
“I would require your company on occasion,” he said. “There are some society functions that demand my attendance—and yours.”
On occasion. More a marital front, a mirage. Did he sense her continued resistance?
“I could augment the proposition. Take you to Bath.” He ran a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. “A honeymoon by all appearances.”
Bath? Did he know she’d always wanted to visit there? Father must have told him. Perhaps in Bath she could find relief from the headache that almost continually beat about her temples. Yet he was offering her Bath like a bauble on a silver plate. A sort of bribe. A faux honeymoon.
She nearly squirmed, her humiliation complete. She was livid not only with Father but at their circumstances, tobacco and all its ensuing wretchedness, and the powerful men who perpetuated it.
“I may be indebted, but I am genteel, Mr. Buchanan,” she said breathlessly. “Never in my life did I imagine I would be reduced to discussing matrimony with a mere merchant.”
Silence. Had she hurled one insult too many?
The gaze he turned on her was ice-blue. “I won’t force you, Miss Catesby.”
Shaken and needing air, she got up with what remained of her tattered dignity and fled the library, going in search of the music room. Leith Buchanan didn’t follow.
26
The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
Martha Washington
Juliet felt trapped like a fox before hounds. A dozen different scenarios played out in her panicked thoughts, keeping her awake that night and bedeviling her on the return up the James River.
She could go to Philadelphia and live with Aunt Damarus.
But if she did, Father would sell Royal Vale.
She could press Loveday to accept the Scot instead.
But he had, for unknown reasons, chosen her.
If she herself refused him, she might deprive Loveday of a suitable match, perhaps even a romantic one, in Britain.
What did Mr. Buchanan think of her now?
She’d seen no more of him since yesterday. Not another word had been exchanged between them after their fractious library meeting following Christmas dinner, when they’d all moved to the music room for further festivities. But the burn of it lingered.
Jostled about in the coach on the rutted road, Juliet swiped at her eyes with a gauze pocket handkerchief, glad Loveday was dozing. They’d stayed up till midnight at the Ravenals’, and she’d been struck by how composed Mr. Buchanan remained the rest of Christmas Day, while she herself was a knotted thread.
She’d almost expected him to come bid her father and Zipporah goodbye this morning, but there’d been no sign of him. She’d overheard him say he had a few remaining stores to visit before his departure from York Town on one of his ships. Perhaps he’d already left. The Ravenals weren’t expected to return to Forrest Bend until after Twelfth Night.
