“But, sir, will there be nae introduction?” asked his senior clerk, the boldest of the bunch and a third cousin.
Introductions? He’d completely forgotten. Rarely did he mix business with pleasure. Further proof of the effect she had on him.
“That, lads, is Mrs. Leith Buchanan of colonial Virginia,” he said, hardly believing his good fortune.
Another lull ensued, no less astonished.
“With all due respect, sir...” Another clerk worked to conceal a red-faced grin. “I wouldna be wasting time here in the countinghouse with a lass like that at home.”
42
Give a little love to a child and you get a great deal back.
John Ruskin
That night Leith came home before midnight. Glasgow law was more lax now, no longer keeping to the ten o’clock curfew he remembered from his university days. The house was dark, and he felt a tick of regret for keeping anyone awake, but the servants were well compensated so it seemed a slight grievance.
“Good evening, sir.”
“All is well?”
“Verra weel, sir. Still snowing, I take it?”
“The ground is covered, aye, and my cloak and hat.” Leith gave them over to the footman’s outstretched hands, then climbed the stairs. The cold in his bones would only be countered by a coal fire. He reached his room by the light of hall sconces but then backtracked. Was Juliet’s door ajar?
The memory she’d made at the countinghouse refused to budge. Though he’d had shipping notices to post and cargo inventories to check, he’d gotten little done since her visit.Midafternoon, a note had come round from the guildhall saying a lady thought to be Mrs. Buchanan had been seen in the assembly room at the Merchants House. Bold of her.
His hand on the knob of her door, he debated the wisdom of what he was about to do.
Wise, nay. Needy, aye.
The door was so new it didn’t creak when opened, nor did the floorboards when trod upon. They were further muffled by the thickest carpets he could find during construction. Though she’d only been here a few days, her presence was palpable. But she’d soon be gone to the country once her trousseau was finished, no longer a temptation or a distraction. He’d allow himself this one last concession.
He saw that the shutters were open as if she’d been watching the change of weather. He recalled her delight while she’d caroled in the Williamsburg snowstorm, when he’d been watching her from the upstairs window at Ravenal’s. The hearth’s fire was blazing as if recently resupplied with coal, and her bed curtains were as open as the shutters, illuminating her form beneath the covers. Her cheek lay upon her hand atop the pillow. A nearly forgotten line fromRomeo and Julietleapt to mind.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!
He stopped, willed himself to leave ... and lost. It didn’t help that her hair—that extravagance of black that had been all curls earlier—was now subdued and braided like he remembered from the ship. The beribboned end of it draped over the coverlet nearly to the floor.
Drawing closer, he reached out and fingered the silken plait, wanting to unravel it. But the stubborn shadows crept in again, intruding on the moment and destroying the small intimacy before he turned away.
Confined in the coach-and-four the next morn, Juliet and Leith left Glasgow. Feeling that unwelcome beat at her temples, she prayed she wouldn’t be coach sick. She wanted to be her best for the children. For Leith.
He seemed intent on showing her Jamaica Street before crossing New Bridge and the Clyde. “Lyrica and Euan live there in the townhouse my father built. They’re not often in residence, preferring the countryside, though Euan travels to London and Edinburgh oft enough on Buchanan business.”
“I see the Buchanan initial on the gate.” Juliet looked at the shuttered stone building much like theirs, her curiosity about her in-laws growing. She missed Loveday, even Minette, and sat somewhat rigid in the coach, a brazier of hot coals beneath her feet, her hands fisted in her feather muff.
“You’re looking ... colorful,” Leith said. Did she fancy she heard admiration along with amusement in his voice?
“Children like color.” She studied her silk cape with its whimsical embroidery of flowers and animals, even tiny mint-green grasshoppers. “I don’t want to frighten them, being a stranger.”
“Have you been around children much?”
“At church, mostly. Once Loveday and I taught the enslaved children at Royal Vale like the Bray School in Williamsburg, but Father was against it so we stopped.”
He said nothing to this, just leaned back on the upholstered seat opposite and lowered his eyes. Though she didn’t dare say it, he looked more like an undertaker in unrelieved black save the white stock about his neck. Was it a reflection of how he felt about this visit?
Stifling a sigh, she lifted the curtain and looked out on a snowy landscape and what resembled a small, smoke-hazedvillage. “What are those quaint tents and wagons beside those twin towers?”
