“None of which I feel at liberty discussing just yet,” Euan replied. “I don’t want to frighten nor raise false hopes. Suffice it to say, Scots law is oft brutal, but we have more on our hands than this false charge. There’s been new news regarding the colonies. We must quickly take action now that America is in open revolt or run the risk of ruining the Buchanan firm in future.”
Lying awake in Leith’s bedchamber without him gave rise to all sorts of speculations and frets. What sort of lodging did he have in gaol? Was there adequate food? Warmth? Though it was April, the Scottish weather still chilled Juliet to the bone. She tried not to think of the blooming redbud and dogwood of home and how the sun shone upon the James River like molten gold, warming everything it touched.
Leith had yet, in her eyes, to fully recover from his Virginia illness. Such harsh conditions could return him to that frightening state of before, the fever and coughing and far worse. He might even be denied a doctor.
Turning over, she laid her head upon his pillow, his beloved masculine scent a part of the smooth linen casing. Was he lying awake thinking of her? Stunned by this turn of events? After she had shared his bed as his wife in more than name, his absence cut deep, the recent memories they’d made deeper still.
Woven into her scattered, weary thoughts was a psalm.They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause ... But I give myself unto prayer.
She must give herself to prayer. And she would go to the tolbooth to determine if she could gain entry herself or persuade Leith’s gaolers to take him a letter.
The tolbooth was unlike anything Leith had imagined from the outside. A peculiar odor hung about it, of stale sweat and urine and boiled neeps and tatties and worse. His gaolers were respectful of him simply because they feared him and his position, knowing he might be exonerated and turn on them in time.
“Mr. Buchanan, sir.” The head warden walked him back to a cell at the very end of the hall, past the deranged and thieves and suspected witches and other destitute men and women, who shook the bars as if to rattle him as he passed. “Your wife has been here thrice now.”
What? Leith nearly stopped walking. He missed Juliet with a physical ache. She was his every waking thought.
“Before ye yerself came to be here, sir. Mrs. Buchanan visited the women inmates and even arranged for regular deliveries to be made to provision the poorest. A few other well-placed ladies are now following her example.”
Throat knotted, Leith said nothing, unwilling to admit he’d not known, though his reaction surely told the warden plenty as they walked through the labyrinth of suffering all around him. He’d never given much thought to the misery within these walls, nor a second glance at those whose ears had been nailed to the Tron outside. His hard-heartedness assured him these vermin-ridden prisoners had simply gotten what they deserved. Juliet had come here and seen things he could not.
His thoughts swung to the warm coal hearths of Virginia Street and the climbing boy she’d taken to the kitchen and fed. Arthur? Had she continued to help him too? The lad had left Leith’s mind the moment he’d departed the kitchen.
Surrounded by society’s outcasts within four walls, Leithwondered why he’d never truly seen them before. He’d only seen through them.
His gaoler unlocked his cell. It was no different from any other inmate’s. Cold. Spare. Reeking. It chased all benevolence from his thoughts.
58
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Socrates
Juliet sat in Leith’s Jamaica Street office as she had every day since his arrest five days before. The Buchanan factors and clerks still seemed uneasy with her presence, but she felt a pressing need to be about his business in his absence—and it proved a formidable task. His clear instructions to her aboard ship when he thought he was dying returned to her now with greater urgency. As principal in the Buchanan firm, he had his steady hand in everything, though his brothers had their own considerable share of the business.
Across Leith’s immense desktop, newsprint swam before her eyes from both sides of the Atlantic.
King George III to issue royal proclamation closing American colonies to all commerce and trade.
Provincial Congress in Massachusetts orders 13,600 American soldiers to be mobilized.
Governor Gage secretly ordered by the British to enforcethe Coercive Acts and suppress open rebellion among colonists by using all necessary force.
Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia.
Virginians state they will surrender their liberties only at the expense of their lives.
She called the nearest clerk, who hurried in to do her bidding. Forcing a smile, she said with far more confidence than she was feeling, “I need to summon the Buchanan board for a meeting. Can you arrange that?”
“Of course, Mrs. Buchanan. Right away, aye.”
He left and Juliet shut the door after him. She returned to the desk and sank down into Leith’s chair. Thunder beat behind her temples, and she closed her eyes, a short, desperate prayer rising.
Lord, please help me.
The next morning she faced the board members in the boardroom, some of them the leading tobacco lords of Glasgow, Euan and Niall among them. Most regarded her with a wary suspicion, but she didn’t blame them. She was a Virginian, not a Glaswegian, and she was a woman, neither of which were welcome in this male-dominated sphere. With Leith’s future hanging in the balance, the situation was even more tense.
She took her husband’s place at the head of the table, several carefully prepared papers before her. “Gentlemen, I’d like to pray before we call this meeting to order.”
