The Mistress of Tall Acre (15 page)

A log rolled forward, sending a shower of sparks onto the delft tiles near his boots. “I don’t want you burdened with this, Miss Menzies. You have enough concerns of your own.”

“I have one less.” She smoothed the coverlet around Lily Cate, torn between gratefulness and aggravation. “You’ve paid Three Chimneys’ land taxes, your daughter tells me.”

His gaze swung back to her, questioning. “The maids have been talking, I suppose.” His look of surprise vanished at her nod. “Aye, the taxes have been paid, but that doesn’t begin to unravel the rest.”

“New occupants, you mean.” He was obviously aware Three Chimneys would go to Clementine Randolph’s kin. The very thought nettled. But for all she knew, Seamus fancied the outspoken Clementine. “Then you should know I’ve given more thought to your proposal. If you promise to use indentures or other labor, the land is yours to lease.”

“You’ll want that in writing.”

“Your word is sufficient.” She forced a small smile, trying to make amends for the tavern. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he answered.

She’d expected to feel some satisfaction, some sweetness, but what did the land lease matter if her home was no longer hers?

Sore of heart, she eased Lily Cate back into bed, aware she might not have the privilege much longer. Shivering despite the blanket he’d draped around her shoulders, she looked toward the adjoining door. She didn’t want to return to Anne’s room, the troubling diary hidden in the desk. She’d not sleep a wink, unsettled as she was.

Without another word Seamus went out, looking as troubled as she felt despite their new agreement. She lay down with Lily Cate, thoughts full of Seamus, as the party below played out till dawn.

The day of the ball Seamus stood at his study window, watching snow shake down like salt from a saltcellar, blanketing every bush and tree and threatening to prolong his house party. Though he was glad of some company, he was ready to see it end and return to estate business. Clementine Randolph’s outspokenness was beginning to wear thin. Some of his fellow officers drank too much and were in danger of draining his wine cellar. And he was preoccupied enough to worry that Lily Cate might disappear despite his precautions.

“Papa?”

He turned away from the frosted glass, warmed by the sound of her lilting voice. She had finally stopped calling him
sir.
Why, he didn’t know. He suspected it was Sophie’s doing, and he was supremely thankful.

“How do I look for the ball?”

Like your mother.

For a moment he was too choked to speak. She pirouetted on the threshold in a new dress of silk and linen, a wide yellow sash about her waist. They’d left all her clothes in Williamsburg that bitter night, but a Roan seamstress had been at work making a new wardrobe since.

She came nearer till she stood in front of him. “Miss Sophie arranged my hair.” Pleasure and pride shone in her eyes. She looked up at him as if needing his approval, hopeful and half shy all at once.

“You’re . . .” Stooping, he took a closer look at her. “Beautiful.”

She giggled, revealing freshly cleaned teeth. One was loose. She’d taken to wiggling it in odd moments but seemed to have forgotten about it for the time being.

He glanced at the door. “Where is Miss Menzies?”

“She’s dressing.” Lily Cate leaned nearer, her warm whisper tickling his ear. “She looks like a princess.”

The tender moment passed. Lily Cate ran off. He wondered how Sophie felt about being here. She was still smiling, keeping to the shadows mostly, but showing no unease. And she was attracting attention. Clementine had made one high-handed remark about her presence, but he’d made sure there wasn’t another. His fellow officers weren’t so easily dismissed. What had McClintock said earlier?

“She’s quite comely, Seamus, no matter her unsavory connections. Is she . . . unattached?”

Seamus had looked over the card table at his second in command, someone he’d always liked—till now. “I wouldn’t know,” he replied, a slow awareness dawning. He’d asked Sophie here for Lily Cate, or so he’d thought. But mayhap there were higher hands in this than his.

“Do you think, perhaps, we could be seated together at supper? Last night she was at the end of the table with your daughter and the Melbournes. The old man is deaf as a post and Mrs. Melbourne is little better.” McClintock furrowed a brow. “It’s as if she’s been quarantined and you don’t want anybody near her.”

Seamus ignored the gibe and made no promises, unsurprised when Richard Graeme soon cornered Sophie. Watching from across the room, Seamus wrestled down a desire to intervene, wondering if she was as bothered by the major’s attention as he was.

“If you’d be a bit more obliging, I could have my estate on the James and acquire Three Chimneys too.” McClintock sipped his drink and frowned as he watched Graeme share a cup of punch with Sophie across the room. “We would be neighbors.”

Seamus didn’t tell him Three Chimneys was in jeopardy, or that the idea of having him as a neighbor made him want more Madeira. The truth was that if Sophie did wed, her troubles might end. Only she needed a good man, a man unlike her father, who would be gentle and not harsh. Who could give her children, make a good home. Remove the danger of being destitute.

McClintock’s voice was remarkably condescending. “I might overlook her Tory roots.”

Seamus stiffened. The camaraderie he felt with his fellow officers only went so far. Somehow every one of them seemed unworthy. And none of them had a motherless daughter in need of a feminine hand.

For now the ball was about to begin and snow was still falling, and he was looking forward to a quieter house on the morrow.

Musicians, mostly itinerant fiddlers, were tuning their instruments at one end of the polished ballroom. They’d arrived despite the weather along with a few guests from Roan, all dressed in their Sabbath best and promising a good number for dancing.

He searched the room for Lily Cate and found Sophie instead.

She looks like a princess.

She was wearing blue, his favorite color. A simple cameo on a velvet ribbon graced her throat. She lacked both makeup and powder, but none were needed. Though the other women were alluring in a sophisticated way, she seemed set apart, a beguiling mix of simplicity and charm.

She glanced at him and then away. Lily Cate was holding her hand, and they turned their backs on the room to stand at a window and look out at the snow. It made him nervous, thinking someone might be watching from the lawn. But surely a stranger wouldn’t be out in such foul weather, no matter the motive. This was his only solace.

McClintock was at his elbow again, bemoaning Graeme’s persistence. “Since I was never fortunate enough to be Miss Menzies’s supper partner, perhaps you could arrange for a dance.”

“I plan on it,” Seamus said.

McClintock grunted his displeasure. “With all due respect, I mean
me
and Miss Menzies, not
you
and Miss Menzies.”

“Then ask her. But not until I’ve had the pleasure.”

Most balls, be it country or town, opened with the minuet. Seamus preferred country dances but would bow to custom. He simply needed a partner. No one would take the floor till he did. He made his way around the edges of the glittering room, his breathing shallow as he second-guessed what he was about to do. He didn’t know if the lady in question would dance with him. Did she even like to dance? Mrs. Hallam’s academy was said to turn out the finest footwork in Virginia. He was willing to wager Sophie hadn’t danced a step since then. Not with a war on and circumstances what they were at Three Chimneys.

The ladies were watching him and fluttering their fans, thinking he’d choose one of them. He didn’t give them a glance.

“Miss Menzies.”

She turned from the window and faced him, surprise sketched across her features.

Lily Cate was between them, looking from him to Sophie like she would burst with delight. His daughter was young but clever, and she seemed close to accepting if Sophie didn’t.

“May I have this dance?” For a second he hung between hope and fear. Sophie’s wide eyes held his in hesitation. She wouldn’t refuse him, would she? Her small curtsey was her answer.

They stepped onto the ballroom floor, Lily Cate staring after them, and not only her. He could feel Graeme’s and McClintock’s eyes on them too. Sophie, however, didn’t look at him again. Not even when his hands captured hers. She kept her eyes averted, that serene smile locked in place.

He felt rusty as an old hinge, his battlefield injuries and the winter’s damp leaving him a bit stiff. His first dance with Anne had been at a wedding. Their last dance . . . he couldn’t remember. He’d always preferred foxhunting or fencing or shooting. Aside from a few frolics when the officers’ wives were present during the war, there’d been little merriment in encampments. He’d asked Anne to accompany Martha Washington to headquarters at Valley Forge, but she’d refused.

The minuet ended too soon, and McClintock claimed Sophie.

“Near perfection,” he murmured when their set was over. “By heaven but she’s light on her feet.”

Because there’s nothing to her.
Seamus bit his cheek to keep from saying it. Sophie was feather light. A good indication she’d be frail like Anne. Unable to have children, mayhap. A huge risk. But what did that matter to him?

By midnight she’d danced with every man in the room, even old Melbourne. Seamus danced with every woman, even Lily Cate. She didn’t yet know the steps, but in her shy, eager-to-please way, she garnered admiring, amused glances for her efforts.

“Really, Seamus Ogilvy, you’re hard on a woman’s heart.” With an exasperated swish of her fan, Clementine cornered him by the punch bowl.

He faced her warily in the small anteroom off the ballroom. Ever since she’d arrived she’d made a point of trying to discover where his affections lay, and he prepared himself for more of the same. Though they’d been friends since before the war, he hardly knew her now. The long, lean years had given her sharp edges, though he wagered she’d not known a tenth of the hardship many had. Once lighthearted and witty, she had turned waspish and bitter.

“Come now, you’re hardly the grieving widower after all these years, are you? Louisa is quite put out you haven’t asked her for a second dance . . . or anything else for that matter.”

His gaze traveled unwillingly to the brunette across the room. Just who was put out? Louisa . . . or Clementine? He had no need of a wife. Anne’s memory was enough. Lily Cate was enough. Attempting anything other than getting Tall Acre up and running again was too much. “To be honest, I’ve yet to meet a woman my late wife’s equal,” he replied. It was neither gentlemanly nor entirely truthful, but it cleared the air and made it plain he wasn’t interested.

“Well,” she shot back, “I shan’t tell Louisa
that
.” Frowning, she scanned the ballroom. “There’s another matter having to do with Sophie Menzies. It seems strange to me that you’d have a Tory beneath your roof.”

He looked hard at her. “Once upon a time we were all Tories, Miss Randolph.” The little flag flying atop Sophie’s father’s desk leapt to mind. Sewn by her own hand, every star and stripe in place, it seemed a small work of art. Of heart. The memory never failed to move him. “Miss Menzies is Tory no longer.”

“Are you quite sure of that, General?” Clementine’s arrogance held firm. “I’ve even heard her brother fled to England with Benedict Arnold.”

The accusation, boldly stated as fact, turned him defensive. “Lots of rumors fly in the wake of war. That is one of them.”

She turned away without another word, leaving a trail of pungent perfume in her wake. He watched her depart, sick at heart. Seamus had long counted Curtis more friend than fellow officer. But a turncoat? Washington had alluded to such. If true, the betrayal would be only one in a long line of them. Yet he sensed it would devastate Miss Menzies.

“Papa? How long will it be till the dancing stops?”

He looked to his left. Lily Cate sidled up to him, Sophie behind her. “Are you tired?”

“Aye—and nay.” She wrinkled her nose in such a way her freckles stood out. “Miss Sophie said if we go to bed now, we can wake up early tomorrow to play in the snow.”

“That sounds better than dancing,” he murmured, meaning it.

“Are you going to bed now too?” Lily Cate said.

“Not till our guests leave.”

“Will they ever?”

He chuckled. “The weather may have other ideas.”

“Goodnight, Papa.” She curtsied, and he found himself wishing she’d kiss him goodnight. Once Sophie left she would be shy of him again. He resigned himself to that fact, wishing otherwise.

Looking on, Sophie reached out a hand, stroking Lily Cate’s dark curls like she’d done in the night. Their bedchamber conversation came rushing in, everything he’d never say by day. All that he’d held back.

“Goodnight, General Ogilvy,” Sophie whispered with a half smile.

The title seemed so formal. Hadn’t they moved beyond that? A simple
Sophie
and
Seamus
sounded much better. But how to sidestep formalities . . . shift to something else?