The Mistress of Tall Acre (14 page)

Stepping over the threshold, Sophie fell in love in a glance. Corner fireplaces were at each end, fire screens worked in vivid, intricate hues. By Anne’s hand? A portrait of Tall Acre’s former mistress hung above one marble mantel. Unsmiling but serene. Too young to perish.

The room shimmered with silk, jewels flashing and cologne overpowering. Sophie was glad to be unadorned and unpowdered, fading into the woodwork but for Lily Cate. Tonight she’d become a chatterbox, clutching Sophie’s hand and proudly showing her around.

Someone sat down at a harpsichord, playing softly. Sophie listened, longing to touch the familiar keys. With Three Chimneys’ music room a memory, she’d forgotten how lovely the sound. Charming, even romantic.

“We’ve come a long way from our days at Mrs. Hallam’s, Miss Menzies.” Clementine approached, waving her fan with all the drama Sophie remembered. “I’d quite lost track of you, but here you are at Tall Acre looking quite at home. General Ogilvy tells me your brother served with distinction under his command.”

“As a captain, yes.”

“I’d also heard he’s not yet returned from the war . . .” Her eyes narrowed and took in Lily Cate, still by Sophie’s side. “And Three Chimneys is no longer in your possession.”

Had the general told her that too? “I still reside there. Nothing has changed in that respect.”

“Oh, but it will change.” Clementine seemed pleased to report it. “I have it on good authority that Three Chimneys is to go to a relative of mine.”

Sophie’s hand went to the cameo at her throat. “I’m hoping my brother will return in time and that won’t be necessary.” Admitting anything less was saying Curtis was dead—or worse. Behaving dishonorably was not to be broached.

“Oh?” Clementine’s expression was nothing short of smug. “My relations say the land taxes haven’t been paid either.”

“Yes, they have!” Lily Cate’s voice rang out, clear and bell-like across the grand room. The harpsichord ceased playing, and every feminine eye turned toward them. “Papa paid the land taxes. Florie told me he did!”

There was a stunned silence. Sophie looked at Lily Cate. Had he? Nothing else had been said about leasing the land. Why hadn’t he told her?

“That day at the tavern when you were so upset—” Lily Cate turned wide eyes on her. “Papa hurt your feelings and you almost cried.”

“Well, well . . .” With a sulky smile, Clementine folded her fan and moved away. “It seems I don’t know
everything
after all.”

Squeezing Lily Cate’s hand, Sophie led her to a corner, sinking down in a chair so that they were eye level. “Those are private, grown-up matters.” She trod as gently as she could, relieved the others resumed talking and turned their backs to them. “’Tis best to keep quiet about such things.”

“Like the man outside my window?”

Sophie stared at her, embarrassment fading to confusion.

“There’s a strange man on the lawn who watches me.”

“A stranger?” Sophie looked toward the dining room doorway. “Does your father know?”

Nodding, Lily Cate moved into the warm circle of Sophie’s arms. “He hasn’t seen him yet, but I have.”

Lord, please, let it be her imagination.

The genteel evening was in tatters. The ladies were looking at her again as if she and the general had more of an arrangement than simple taxes. Mention of a tawdry tavern hadn’t helped. And Florie would have to be dealt with sooner or later. But all of it paled next to Lily Cate’s revelation.

Yawning, Lily Cate laid her head on Sophie’s shoulder. The gentlemen were coming in now, having had their after-dinner indulgences of Madeira and tobacco. Clementine began a few tentative notes on a flute.

Sophie took advantage of the moment. “Please tell your father I’m taking you upstairs. We’ll read a story, say our prayers.”

With a nod, Lily Cate went to him, but he was already looking at them as if sensing something amiss.

Lily Cate came back, face pale. “My stomach hurts.”

Taking her hand, Sophie led her through a far door and entered a darkened hall, unsure of where she was. Thoughts full of Three Chimneys, she was suddenly homesick, wondering what she would do if it was lost to her, but more worried about the little girl who had far more troublesome matters brewing than a stomachache.

Once upstairs, Sophie summoned a maid to bring peppermint tea and replenish the waning fire. Soon Lily Cate was undressed and in a nightgown. While Sophie recounted
Le Chat Botté
, or
Puss in Boots
, promising to petition her father about a kitten, Lily Cate sipped from a dainty cup. ’Twas late, her yawning a signal to end the eventful evening.

Joining hands, they knelt on the carpet and bowed their heads, saying in unison what had become Lily Cate’s favorite prayer, taught to Sophie herself when she was young.

“Dear God most high, hear and bless Thy beasts and singing birds: And guard with tenderness small things that have no words. Amen.”

Afterward, Sophie rocked Lily Cate by the crackling hearth, wondering if Anne had done the same in this very chair. Her gaze trailed to the windows. Drapes and shutters were drawn against the cold, ensuring no stranger would be looking in at them. She’d leave the connecting door open in case Lily Cate cried out or was sick in the night, or worse.

When Lily Cate was settled, Sophie returned to her bedchamber reluctantly. The music and laughter coming from below was like a jolt of coffee keeping her awake. Clementine’s voice was easily distinguished, witty and frequent, rising above the rumble of the men.

Rubbing her arms against the cold despite the heat of the fire, she began a slow walk around the room, not wanting to climb into Anne’s bed. The coverlet bore the popular tree-of-life pattern, conveying a subtle irony.

Was Lily Cate . . . conceived there?

Her fingers closed about the doorknob adjoining her room to the general’s. Locked. The relief coursing through her made no sense. He was an officer, a man of honor. He had no designs on her, illicit or otherwise. Her being in Anne’s room was pure happenstance, all because of Lily Cate. Likely he wanted a sound night’s sleep and she would help ensure that. Farther down the hall were his many guests, filling up every nook and cranny of the upper floors.

The fire popped, making her jump. She slowed her pacing when she came to a desk, twin to her own. Amidst the heavier Chippendale furnishings, the delicate Queen Anne piece seemed an outcast, tucked beneath a shuttered window and heavy drapes.

Surprised, she ran her fingers over the polished wood. Did it contain a secret compartment like hers? Feeling beneath the panel triggered a latch. The wood gave way under her practiced hand. A small, leather-bound book lay in a hidden drawer. A Bible?

Nay . . . a diary.

She hesitated, hand hovering. The desk, the room, had been swept clean of Anne, all but this, and Sophie felt an inexplicable hunger to know the woman who had been Seamus’s wife.

Picking up the diary carefully, she opened to the flyleaf.

To my beloved, Anne, wife of my heart.

Her own heart tripped. Beneath this tender dedication he had written in a bold, familiar hand,
Proverbs 19:14
. Sophie knew the Scripture well, though he’d not spelled it out.
House and riches are the inheritance of fathers; and a prudent wife is from the
L
ORD
.

A spring date followed. Their wedding day? Had he bestowed the little book as a gift? If so, it held far more sentiment than she’d given Seamus Ogilvy credit for. She’d assumed the war years had bled all the softness out of him. Perhaps she was wrong.

Taking a breath, she turned a page.
October, 1778
. Anne’s hand was fragile compared to her husband’s, lacy and loping and uneven where his was tight and precise and steadfast. Her first penned words carried the lash of a whip.

I loathe Tall Acre.

Sophie’s breathing thinned. She brought the diary nearer the fire so that light spilled onto the page. Suddenly the book assumed a weight it hadn’t before.

Without Seamus here I have no purpose, no heart, no desire to do anything. The baby only makes matters worse. She grows fat and happier by the day while I seem to waste away. Tall Acre with all its woods and vales seems naught but a rustic outpost. I long to go to Williamsburg, but sister tells me ’tis unsafe. The British may attack the town and then where would we be?

Sophie shut the diary, stung by the tone of the words. Anne must have been writing about Lily Cate, who would have been a few months old by then. Crossing the carpet, she returned the book to the secret drawer, sorry and half ashamed she’d given in to temptation and opened it. The fact that Anne was no longer living made her feel only slightly less guilty. Seamus was certainly alive and well, and hopefully oblivious to the penned outpourings of Anne’s heart.

Something her mother once said, long dismissed, broke loose.

“There’s trouble at Tall Acre.” Evelyn Menzies’s features had been pinched with fatigue, as she’d just returned from attending a birth in the quarters. “I didn’t go up to the house, but one hears things. With the general away, the mistress isn’t faring well.”

At the time Sophie had held her tongue, and her mother said no more.

Truly, Anne Ogilvy had not been a happy woman, a content wife.

11

C
rying shook Sophie awake. In the cold silence of the unfamiliar room, the sound raked her every nerve. Thrusting aside the covers, she traded the warmth of the bed for the chill of the bedchamber, nearly tripping over the hem of her nightgown in her haste to quell the sound. The door separating them was open, and she groped her way to the curtained bed and took Lily Cate in her arms.

“Hush your crying, lamb. I’m right here . . . your father is near.”

No sooner had she said it than the door opened and Seamus walked in from the hall. Ignoring him, Sophie continued stroking Lily Cate’s hair, aware she was not truly awake. Eyes closed, she curled into Sophie’s chest and seemed to settle. Sophie’s own heart beat in her throat, more from Seamus standing beside her than Lily Cate’s outburst.

The clock chimed two, a subtle reminder to return to bed, but neither of them moved. Finally Seamus faced the hearth, added several chunks of wood to the fire, and stirred the ashes till they came to life and pushed the shadows back. Despite the late hour he was still in formal dress, though he’d shed his fancy coat. Was the party still going on downstairs? A sudden burst of laughter told her so.

“Just a bad dream, perhaps,” she told him, keenly aware she was missing her dressing gown, her hair spilling down without her customary nightcap. “I’ll stay with her awhile if you want to return below.”

He reached out and pulled a blanket from a chair back, draping it over her shoulders. “She’s been sleeping fairly well till tonight. Mayhap all the excitement. Unfamiliar guests.”

“Earlier she told me she’s seen a strange man on the lawn.”

He shot a glance at the shuttered windows. “Someone seems to be watching the house, aye.”

“Have you any idea who or why?”

He looked at her for a long moment as if weighing how much to say. “Her Williamsburg relations are none too happy she’s here. I suspect it’s their doing.”

“But you’re her father. This is her home.”

“There’s much you don’t know. ’Tis . . . complicated.”

The general had been away fighting a war while Anne’s kin took care of Lily Cate. Were they fighting to regain her? “’Tis none of my concern.” She held Lily Cate closer, the intimacy of the moment making a mockery of her words.

Leaning back against the mantel, he ran a hand over his jaw, visibly aggrieved. Here, in the privacy of this room, he could unburden himself as he could never do among his many reveling guests. Who was she to deny him?

“You may tell me what you will—or not. It shall go no further.”

He gave a nod that seemed to seal some sort of agreement between them. “When I was discharged from the army, I went to Williamsburg after sending a letter to Anne’s relations regarding my intentions. They refused to let me see Lily Cate, so I had to force my way in and remove her.”

She went still, imagining it. The heated scene. The sudden separation. Lily Cate’s confusion. “As her father you had every right, though it must have frightened her as you were little more than a stranger.”

“I’m not proud of what happened, but she’s my flesh and blood, all I have of Anne.”

Anne, indeed. Sophie looked down at his daughter, feeling like a third party. “You want what’s best for her.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure what that is. I simply want her to know me—as her father.” The words seemed hard for a man unused to tender things. “To count on me . . . come to me . . . trust me.”

His heartfelt words stirred an old, sad longing. She’d wanted that from her own father, but it had eluded her, yet here was a man who longed to be the center of a little girl’s world and that hope was being thwarted.