The Mistress of Tall Acre (11 page)

“Tobacco is no longer a good cash crop as it weakens the soil and is labor intensive. If Tall Acre is to turn profitable again, I need to diversify. My goal is to cultivate wheat and cotton—”

“Cotton?” she exclaimed. “’Tis nearly as hard to produce as silk.”

“Only till someone finds a reliable way to harvest it,” he countered, seeming unperturbed. “If you’ll agree to the land lease, I can guarantee a profit. I cannot guarantee you’ll retain Three Chimneys, but I’ll do what I can.”

She nearly sighed aloud. She’d rather he’d come striding in, take his daughter, and make no honorable proposals. With every bold word, he was wedding himself deeper into her head and heart, and she felt a new kind of desperation. She couldn’t get lost in him, couldn’t depend on him. Yet she felt herself warming, soaking up his attention like a neglected flower left too long in the shade.

Lily Cate stirred in her arms, slowly coming awake. She took her father in, her whisper soft and sleepy. “You’ve come back.”

Sophie longed for her to show joy at his appearing. The guarded hope in his gaze rent her heart. Despite their shaky start, he loved his little daughter deeply. Couldn’t Lily Cate sense that?

Bending her head, Sophie whispered so low in her ear he couldn’t possibly hear. “Go to him.”

Slowly Lily Cate eased off Sophie’s lap and onto his. “Sir, where is she?”

He touched her sleep-flushed cheek with his good hand. “Who?”

“Your bride.”

A slight pause. “I don’t know . . . I’ve not found her yet.”

Sophie began wrapping the remaining biscuit and apple in a linen napkin, turning away from the intimate scene. Already she felt a bit empty. Their presence was a warm, living thing, staving off bedtime and her dread of the dark. Nighttime was always hardest, when the darkness seemed ready to devour her.

“Miss Menzies.”

Unwillingly her gaze found his again.

“We need to finish our conversation.”

“Another time,” she said vaguely.

“Tomorrow, mayhap.”

She gave him a fleeting, noncommittal smile. “Tomorrow is the Sabbath.”

“The day after, then.”

She bit her lip. If he was this persistent on the battlefield, no wonder the war had been won. “Goodnight to you both.” Bending down, she cupped Lily Cate’s chin with one hand and pressed a kiss to her brow.

When she straightened he towered over her, making her feel as small as Lily Cate. He chuckled when she handed him the burgeoning napkin. Old habits made her forget Tall Acre’s larder wasn’t lacking.

“Till Monday,” he said, purpose in his gaze.

8

S
ir, do you not go to church?”

Sir.
Would she never call him
Papa
again?

Seamus looked up from his desk, over stacks of ledgers and quires of paper, to see Lily Cate in the doorway of his study dressed in her best, if one could call it that. A pink gown and quilted petticoat. Cardinal cloak. Green slippers and protective black pattens. A muff and bonnet. Nothing matched, but she’d taken pains with herself, clearly.

She took a wary step into the room. “’Tis the Sabbath, Miss Sophie said.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. Whatever Miss Sophie said was law and long remembered. “I used to go to church,” he told her. Before the war. Before death and disease and destruction darkened a searching heart. “To be honest, I’d forgotten what day it is.”

She took another step, looking about his study, a place she’d not yet been, like it was some sort of dank dungeon. And then her eyes lit on the mantel where the painting of her pony rested, and she flashed him a shy smile. It was Anne’s smile, reminiscent of a better time and place, and it warmed him like a spring day after a long winter.

“May I go with Miss Sophie?”

“Nay, but you can go with me,” he said quickly.

“Thank you,” she replied, clutching her little purse.

Her manners are very fine.

Miss Menzies was right. Whatever had happened with his daughter in Williamsburg, someone there had taught her to be mannerly.

“I’ll need a few minutes to have the coach brought round, make myself presentable,” he said.

In a quarter of an hour they were hurtling down the lane to Roan Church, leaving the problems and pressures of Tall Acre behind. He hoped they wouldn’t be late.

“May we sit with Miss Sophie?”

“Nay.” He felt a hitch of regret. He always seemed to be telling her no. “The Menzies family has their own pew, as do the Ogilvys.”

“If she was my mama could we sit together?”

The coach lurched along with his heart. “Aye, but she is not, and I—I cannot marry her.” Washington’s words bore down on him, challenging him. But it was his daughter’s stare, full of surprise and indignation, that pinned him.

“Well, why not?”

It was the sauciest he’d ever seen her, and he nearly smiled. Mayhap she did have a little of the Ogilvy fire, after all. “Because I don’t love her. We’re simply friends.”

“Well, I love her.” The words were soft. Heartfelt. And still a tad indignant.

He tugged on the window strap for fresh air, saying no more. Clouds were gathering in the east, stacked like cannonballs on the horizon, threatening rain. The oaks and hickories had lost most of their leaves, giving the valley, hailed as one of the most beautiful in Virginia, the look of a sodden gray quilt. Once again he was glad of a long winter. If he’d returned home in spring or summer, in the grip of the planting season, he’d be even more undone than he was.

The church came into view, and he studied it with a critical eye. Situated on a knoll overlooking the Roan Valley, the building was small and of stone, the pews hard, the reverend old. The church’s interior had changed little since he’d attended years before, but the number of congregants seemed to be shrinking. He wagered Lily Cate would be fast asleep once the lengthy sermon began.

After shaking hands with a few people, he led Lily Cate to pew number two, used by Ogilvys for three generations. His father had donated land to establish the building, even recruiting a clergyman from England, and so earned a prominent place, the Menzies family just behind. Unless their pew had somehow been confiscated, Roan hostilities considered.

Seamus took a seat, Lily Cate beside him, but he saw no sign of Sophie Menzies. Soon Lily Cate began to squirm, craning her neck toward the door every time someone came in.

In a few minutes curiosity got the better of him, and he looked back as Sophie entered, her cheeks the crimson of her cape. Had she walked all the way? Facing forward, he fixed his eye on the communion table, wanting to settle the matter of leased lands and land taxes. But he’d have to endure a lengthy service first. The thought brought a stitch of guilt. Was he no better than the moneylenders in the temple?

Beside him, hands folded in her lap with only an occasional bout of fidgeting, Lily Cate did him proud till sermon’s end. Then, “I’m hungry.”

He nodded absently, trying to catch Sophie’s attention before she got away, but a few people cornered him, wanting to greet him and hear his opinion on the new government, and she escaped after a quick hug from Lily Cate. He stood answering questions, cape flapping in the late November wind, the tick of his pulse impatient.

“I need to . . .” Lily Cate was looking up at him, a plea in her blue eyes.

She needed to . . . what? Her small gloved hand gestured to the necessary behind the church.

He led her there, eyes on the road they’d soon travel. By the time Lily Cate emerged, rain was pelting down, rearranging his plans to ride about the estate and talk to his tenants. The road was quickly turning to mud, and a fine mist was snaking in among buildings and trees, further obscuring his view. Where was Miss Menzies?

“I’m hungry,” Lily Cate told him.

I heard you the first time
, he almost said, helping her into the coach. Climbing in after her, he shut the door but left the window cracked.

They took the first bend in the road too quickly, causing Lily Cate to slide across the leather seat. The coachman was young and inexperienced, almost reckless, and Seamus raised a hand to pound on the lacquered ceiling. To no avail. Out the half-shuttered window he caught a glimpse of a cardinal cape as they flew by. The figure jumped out of the way all too late, a wave of mud and water drenching her before the coach slowed to a stop.

Seamus got out, wanting to take the whip to the driver. Wanting to shake Sophie Menzies. What the devil was she doing walking so far on such a day? The sight of Lily Cate’s anxious face at the window cooled his ire. “Are you hurt?” he asked Sophie.

“Just wet,” Sophie answered with a smile as wide as Lily Cate’s, as unbothered as if they’d splashed sunshine on her instead.

“Why aren’t you riding?” he asked. Her face clouded, and he realized his mistake. No mount. No coach. He seized the moment. “The inn is just ahead. We’ll have something to eat and you can dry out.”

Lily Cate clapped her hands as he opened the door and helped Sophie inside, tossing out a warning to the red-faced coachman. “If you cannot manage an easier ride, I’ll drive to Tall Acre myself and you’ll walk the rest of the way.”

After that, they inched along to the Kings Arms, recently renamed The George Inn, its sign freshly painted and bearing a Continental cocked hat. Squat and unadorned, it boasted decent food and a welcoming stone hearth. He’d not seen Lily Cate so delighted since he’d last taken her to Three Chimneys.

She studied the menu chalked on a board, saying letters she knew while holding tightly to Sophie’s hand. He ordered for them and then led the way to a table near the fire through a haze of pipe smoke, away from the ale-soaked patrons in a far corner. Anne had never liked taverns. They were full of vile smells, vile food, and viler people, she’d said. But Sophie didn’t seem to mind, sinking down on a bench as if weary from her walk.

He felt a moment of awkwardness as Lily Cate wedged her way between them. Taking Sophie’s wet cape, he hung it by the fire before sitting down across from them at a scarred table.

“I never expected to spend so pleasant a Sabbath,” she remarked with a smile.

Pleasant? He cast a glance at a rain-spattered windowpane, evidence of the darkest day they’d had so far. Taking her amiable mood to heart, he said, “Perhaps now would be a good time to continue our conversation.”

Her eyes widened as if she’d forgotten—or faulted him for discussing business on the Sabbath. “Leasing our land in exchange for payment of taxes?”

He nodded, noting her continuous use of
our
as if she believed Curtis would return any day.

She took a breath. “’Tis very generous of you, but I . . . I cannot.”

Their eyes locked across the table. “Nay?”

She was looking at him in that intent way she had, conviction in her gaze. “You’re a slaveholder, General, are you not?”

He nearly uttered an oath at the quiet question. But eight years in uniform had taught him to school his emotions, especially the exasperation firing inside him. “A great many Virginians are slaveholders, Miss Menzies, including General Washington.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Your father owned slaves at Three Chimneys.”

“He did, yes, but my mother freed them once he left for Scotland.”

Had she? He’d assumed they’d been sold or had run away. “By law she didn’t have the right to free them. They were the property of your father when he married her, like Three Chimneys.”

“She didn’t see it that way. They were more her family as she’d been raised with them.” Lowering her voice, Sophie glanced at Lily Cate, who seemed unaware of their personal drama. She was busy looking about, lost in the novelty of being in a tavern. “My father, on the other hand, was a cruel man who abused them.”

“I’m not a cruel man.”

“But you’re still a slaveholder.”

There was no denying it. Thankfully, the meal arrived, simple as it was. Lily Cate dug into her mutton pie like a little ploughman, good manners aside. Seamus had lost his appetite. He took a long sip of ale from a sweating pewter tankard and decided to retreat.

But Sophie Menzies was not finished. Eyes down, she swallowed a halfhearted bite of her own dinner and said, “I don’t understand you Patriots, fighting for liberty yet denying it to the very people who need it most.”

He exhaled, her point well taken. “What if I work your fields with indentures?”

“You’d have to put it in writing first.”

“You’d make a good attorney, Miss Menzies. Don’t you trust me?”

“At the moment I don’t trust anyone.” She toyed with her fork, tone soft but impassioned. “I’ve tried to be a good citizen, a patriotic American, only to have my home nearly destroyed by British raiders and now taken away with little warning—”

“That has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your father.” His voice was as low and soothing as he could make it. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell her the rumors about Curtis. “As I said, I’m willing to pay your back taxes.”

She returned her attention to her game pie, but he knew she was no more in the mood to eat than he. “And I’ve decided that would be a highly irregular arrangement.”