I trust you and your sister continue well at Royal Vale.
Ever at your service,
Nathaniel Ravenal
“Uncertain terms?” Loveday’s grieved look shamed Juliet. “You’ve kept something from me. Clearly I’m in the dark.”
Juliet began brokenly, “’Tis complicated...”
Stepping back, Loveday passed the miniature to Juliet. She then burst into tears and fled the parlor, her hurried footsteps on the stairs carving deeper dismay into Juliet’s heart. Her tenderhearted sister felt things deeply. Loveday’s hopes were undeniably dashed. Had she truly wanted to sail to Scotland and make a new start, or was she just being brave to bolster the both of them?
Juliet sank down atop the carpet, the miniature before her. Never had she expected to hear such ill tidings. The letterhad been written early this morn. “Gravely ill” meant a hundred haunting maladies. Malaria. Smallpox. Yellow fever. The flux. Leith Buchanan might now, hours later, be dead.
For all his faults, the man had seemed in the best of health. Robust ... riveting.
The honest admission rebounded like a slap. She could no longer deny it. She’d expected revulsion, not attraction. Disgust, not desirability. He stood for all that she loathed.
Lord, please don’t let him die.
“Are you well, Miss Juliet?” Hosea hovered at the parlor doorway, ever ready to help.
“I’m afraid Mr. Buchanan is gravely ill in Williamsburg.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he replied, raising his sleeves. “A most generous guest. Gave me the cuff links he wore that I admired upon his leaving.”
Juliet blinked, feeling as if she was hearing about someone else. Had her prejudices blinded her to his finer qualities so completely? “Kind of Mr. Buchanan ... good that you have that memory of him.”
While she herself had last left the Scot with a scathing word.
“Should I have Lilith bring herbal tea up to Miss Loveday?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you. Perhaps that will help.”
Juliet continued to sit atop the rug, the letter and miniature before her. She hardly heard Loveday come in a half hour later, tears dried, though her face was still blotched red.
Instead of taking a chair, Loveday sat down on the carpet across from Juliet, their skirts billowing about them. “Tell me everything,” she said.
Juliet picked up the miniature, staring at her own reflection. “There’s something I’m not even telling myself, mainly that my feelings for Mr. Buchanan override my good sense.”
“Feelings? So you admit to them. And they aren’t loathing.”
“When I first saw him at the Raleigh Tavern for the tobacco meeting, I was ... intrigued. He, being a stranger, of course, stood out, though it had little to do with the eye patch he’s since shed. Then, the evening of the ball when I realized who he was, I was all the more enamored despite everything.”
“And you feel it scandalous?”
“It defies explanation.”
“Who can explain attraction? ‘Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: yet who would live, and live without thee!’”
Torments, truly. “The late Joseph Addison.” The poem only made Juliet more moody.
Loveday’s luminous eyes turned piercing. “What are you going to do?”
“What is to be done?” Juliet looked at the discarded letter lying between them. “The fact remains, I abhor all that he stands for and can only pray my infatuation is fleeting. Meanwhile, Mr. Buchanan seems to be dying. That may well end the matter.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Juliet returned the miniature to the letter and refolded it. “We have other pressing things to think about in the cellar with those who needs be on their way.”
