1
Western Virginia
1763
The damp May morning carried the earthy, hopeful scent of spring. Brielle stepped onto the porch of theRose and Crownwhere, true to the tavern’s name, an abundance of rose bushes crowded the stone exterior. About to bloom, they’d soon turn the air to perfume. Always first to wake, she felt a measure of peace in the dawn hush. Instead of bemoaning her five o’clock start, she tried to see it as less bane and more blessing. Doing so helped counter the darkness of her coming here and all the raw memories trailing behind it.
She hurried to the barn, the hem of her indigo petticoats drenched with dew. A striped barn cat meowed at her appearing, the open air exchanged for potent hay and manure and aged wood. She much preferred roses. Sitting down atop her milking stool, she spoke softly to the Devon cow she’d namedFleur. Streams of milk filled the freshly scrubbed bucket, muting Titus’s approach as he passed through the barn.
At the ring of his ax, she nearly sighed aloud. At eight, he could split and stack wood like a man, his callused hands proof. He’d had no boyhood to speak of. Orphaned, his plight of beingbound to the tavern’s owner for seven more years made her ache when her own servitude was finished far sooner. What would become of him when she left?
What would become ofher?
“Miss Brielle.” The whisper came from the back of the barn.
Titus motioned for her to follow. Finished milking, she covered the full pail with a square of clean linen and toted it toward him and the milk house where an enormous elm shaded the cool space.
“Look here in this woodpecker hole.” Titus smiled his lopsided smile, his split lip telling he’d been backhanded by their master. “A clutch of blue bird eggs—I count six.”
Touched by the wonder in his tone, Brielle regarded the colorful eggs with genuine awe. “I forgive that old woodpecker for disturbing our sleep with his drumming, then.”
Titus chuckled then sobered. “Hope that old coon lurking at our back door lately doesn’t discover this nest.”
“I pray not.” She looked to the stables where she heard nickering and jostling, forgetting all about coons and birds. “Another lodger came in late last night.”
“A post rider?”
“A scout.”
“Trouble again?” His eyes rounded. “With French and Indians?”
“The Seven Years’ War is over. The French have surrendered, remember.”
If not the Indians.
She’d say no more lest she frighten him, moving on to churn the butter while he backtracked to the stables.
Midmorning had her clearing the tavern’s public room. Breakfast had ended, the benches and long tables mostly empty. Across the wide main passageway was the bar serving ale and ciderand other spirits from dawn till well past midnight. Rarely did she go there. The perpetually stale odor rankled though she was used to it. The barkeep was the surly Mr. Griffiths, the tavern’s owner.
The scout she’d told Titus about sat near the bar’s fireless hearth. He looked understandably weary, his expression as grim as he was gritty. She was used to that, too. She’d nearly forgotten Philadelphia where men and women dressed in fine garments and went about the city. Here there seemed nothing but humble farmers and frontiersman and their ilk.
“Miss Farrow, see that Ross is fed.”
Brielle startled at Griffiths’ voice.Ross.The scout? She gave a curt nod and swept past her bondsman into the kitchen where the tavern cook—the latest in a line of them—stirred something in a large kettle. Two of the enslaved helped her assemble a tray of fried venison, eggs, toast, and freshly ground coffee.
When she returned to the public room, Ross had left the bar and sat down at a just-cleared table. Eyes down, she served him silently, but that didn’t discourage his conversation.
“You bound to Griffiths?” he murmured hoarsely.
She nodded, pouring coffee from a blisteringly hot pot.
“A shame.”
She said nothing to this, fetching milk and sugar for his coffee. Griffiths might be a brute but he kept a respectable tavern. Folks came far and wide for the rarity of clean bed linens and cider from his orchards. But he didn’t like her talking with his guests and so she mostly kept her eyes down and her mouth shut.
He took a stab at an egg. “Ever been proposed to?”
Flushing, she looked at him then and saw he was old enough to be her father. “Now and then.”
