The moment they were gone, Mama turned to me. “What’s wrong?”
As much as I tried to hide things from Mama, she could always see through my façade. I didn’t want to burden her with Mother Wells’s plans, but my heart was still heavy from the visit we’d had with Lady Paget yesterday.
The Windsor chair I sat upon suddenly felt uncomfortable beneath my padded skirts. “I have discovered that Mother Wells brought me to England to find me a titled husband.” I still couldn’t stomach the idea. “She introduced me to a woman named Lady Paget who is a matchmaker between American heiresses and English lords.”
“And Mother Wells planned this?”
“Yes.” I clenched my hands in frustration. “She said the last two seasons in New York were preparing me for this one. Lady Paget has secured several desirable invitations for me during the London season.”
Mama nodded slowly, her eyes sad. It had been heartbreaking for her to watch me struggle, powerless to protect me from Mother Wells.
“We’ve talked about this, Libby,” she said gently. “We knew that as soon as you turned eighteen, she would put her plans into action.”
“Yes, but I’m almost twenty. I thought she had tired of her plans.”
“You cannot believe she would give up so easily. Now it makes sense why she turned down so many of your beaux in New York.”
I stood, no longer able to sit on the hard wooden chair. Outside, the world was waking up, and people were beginning their workday. Soon customers would arrive at the office to submit advertisements, articles, and opinion pieces. I would spend much of the day editing them and deciding which ones we would print. We lived by Papa’s motto for the newspaper, which wasOpen to ALL PARTIES, but Influenced by NONE. It was a motto I tried to emulate, but I was finding it harder and harder as the revolution drew near. My thoughts and opinions were influenced by many people and events, but especially by the foreknowledge I possessed from the future. How could it not be?
“I have only thirteen months to endure her scheming,” I said to Mama, trying to strengthen my resolve and courage. “I can put off her plans until then.”
“Can you?” Mama rose from her chair and joined me at the window. “Libby.” She paused and looked down at her ink-stained hands, marked with the time and space she occupied. “We’ve often discussed your desire to stay in 1774, but—”
“There is nobut,” I said passionately, surprising both Mama and myself. “I will not leave you.”
Mama put her hand on my arm to calm me, a smile on her lips. “I wasn’t suggesting you stay in 1914. I was simply telling you that you must be careful. There are reasons you would choose 1914—”
“I would never choose 1914.”
She rubbed my arm and sighed. “Try to push off Mother Wells’s plans for as long as possible. Thirteen months is not long, but it can make all the difference for your future.”
I wished with all my heart that my twenty-first birthday was next month and not next year. I had been waiting my whole life to live and breathe like a normal human being. The idea ofwaking up, day after day, on just one path seemed like a dream that was too good to be true. Though I was only nineteen, I had lived for almost forty years.
“Now,” Mama said, “it’s time to get to work. Louis and Glen are finishing up the forms the House of Burgesses requested yesterday.”
Louis Preston was the journeyman who had been Papa’s apprentice since he was twelve. He lived in a small room connected to the printing room with Glen, the new apprentice under Louis’s teaching. They ate in the kitchen with Mariah and Abraham before we had our breakfast and were already at work in the print shop.
“After the forms have been delivered,” Mama continued, “we need to start printing broadsheets for the governor. Louis stayed up late last night working on the proof. You will need to approve it before we make copies.”
At the mention of the burgesses, I thought of Henry. Because of his family’s merchant business, he spent months at a time away from Virginia. His days in Williamsburg were so few, and I longed to spend as much time in his company as possible. I had a mountain of work awaiting me, but it could wait. “I will run the forms to the capitol.”
“There’s no need,” she said. “It’s Glen’s job to make deliveries.”
“’Tis a lovely day, and I would enjoy stretching my legs. Besides, you know how I love the excitement at the capitol during the assemblies.” I had always longed to be a burgess but knew it was out of the question. There had never been a female burgess and would not be a female legislative representative until 1895 in Colorado. Working for the suffragette movement in 1914 made me very aware of the women fighting for a place in politics. Several women were planning to run for state seats, but there had yet to be a woman in a federal position. To evencontemplate a place in the 1774 Virginia House of Burgesses was laughable.
“The excitement at the capitol?” Mama asked. “Or the excitement in seeing one burgess in particular? Mayhap the assembly clerk?”
Henry had been elected as the clerk for the 1774 assembly—all the more reason I wanted to take the forms to the capitol. He would be the person to accept the delivery.
I couldn’t hide the truth from Mama, though she would not approve. She was aware of Lord Ashbury’s plans for Henry’s future, and they did not include me.
“His father is a loyalist, Libby,” she said, as if I didn’t know.
The bell over the front door rang, indicating the arrival of a customer.
Mama moved away from the window and started toward the door. “We have no place in our lives for Henry Montgomery. As much as I want to encourage you to follow your heart, you must see the foolishness in pursuing your friendship with him. You’re not children anymore. His family made their feelings toward us known long ago.”
She was right, but my heart would not accept her words.
