“You shan’t ever again, I assure you.” Lyrica smiled knowingly. “Perhaps you should think of it as a token of Leith’s affection.”
“His defense of me?”
Lyrica nodded. “He is more than fond of you. He even told me you prefer hot chocolate to tea.” She lifted the pot to refill their cups. “Remember, it is thought déclassé to show much outward affection toward one’s spouse, at least here. Though I must say your graciousness is a perfect foil to his gruffness.”
“You understand him well.”
“As well as Leith can be understood.” Lyrica gave an enigmatic little smile. “Don’t let his reserve fool you. Behind it lies a vitally beating heart. Flashes of it come out at uncertain times—like the fight with Cochrane.”
“I wish he’d come home to Virginia Street instead. I want no secrets between us. It pains me to know so little about him, including his past life and upbringing.”
“When the lads were small they rarely saw their father, he was so immersed in the firm. Their mother, Sybella, was often unwell. Neither of them cared for children, and so nursemaids and housekeepers managed them. On the rare occasions they were together, it proved frightening and formal, even loveless.”
Even hearing it secondhand made Juliet ache. A stark contrast to her happy childhood. “And when they came of age?”
“Leith and Euan were educated at university here while Niall trained at a London firm after doing a Grand Tour of the continent. Leith spent considerable time in the Indies and America prior to becoming principal in the firm. At one point, their father had a penchant for gambling and nearly lost a considerable part of their fortune. If not for Leith, they’d not have the standing they do today.”
“Their parents have been buried some years now?”
“They both died of smallpox in the last epidemic and are buried in Ramshorn cemetery. All of the brothers survived it, but only Euan bears scars.” Lyrica set her empty cup on the table. “And you? What is your upbringing?”
“As an American rebel?” Juliet replied, leading to Lyrica’s obvious amusement. “I’m Virginia born and bred, though schooled with Loveday in London for a time. When my mother couldn’t bear being apart from us any longer, we returned to Virginia when I was fourteen and my sister twelve. We resided up the James River on a plantation called Royal Vale, inherited from my great-great-grandparents. My mother died in a carriage accident a few years ago. My father continues well and has recently remarried and is on his way here.”
“To Glasgow? How delightful! We must welcome him, then. Show him a wee bit of Scots hospitality.”
Juliet smiled, wishing she could ask about the maid Édith. Though all seemed peaceful and still, there seemed an echo of warning in the refined, papered parlor.
49
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry “’weep! ’weep! ’weep! ’weep!”
So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep.
William Blake
Leith climbed the mansion’s stairs and stopped at the second-floor landing, hearing voices down the corridor.
“He’s a climbing boy, ma’am,” Mrs. Baillie was saying in her no-nonsense way. She stood with her back to him in the doorway of the guest bedchamber being readied for Juliet’s father and stepmother.
“But he’s scarcely bigger than Bella and Cole,” Juliet replied in a sort of anguish as he heard a scuttling that signified the lad had disappeared up the chimney.
“Only the wee ones can get up and down in such tight places, Mrs. Buchanan. Ofttimes their impoverished parents sell them into the trade or they’re workhouse orphans, lads and lassies both. The master sweeps keep them plenty busy in the city.”
“And they start them so young?”
“Four years old ofttimes,” Mrs. Baillie confessed. “Ye’ve nae coal fires in yer country?”
“Just an abundance of wood, at least in Virginia.”
“Nae chimney sweeps either, I take it.”
Silence.
Though he couldn’t see Juliet from where he stood in the corridor, Leith could imagine her looking up the chimney, ready to get soot-faced for a child she’d never seen and had little control over. And his own chest ached.
