The Mistress of Tall Acre (23 page)

She thinks everything is a delight. A butterfly landed on her shoulder, and she laughed and tried to catch it with her chubby hands before it flew away. She looks more and more like her father, which is bittersweet to me.

3 November

Much sickness in the quarters. I have brought Myrtilla into the house, which incenses Riggs, but I need the help. I cannot tend an active child. The spinning house, I told him, can go to blazes!

At night when all is calm, I beg the housekeeper for the key, go to the cupboard in Seamus’s study, and make use of the Green Fairy. It soothes me as nothing else can. He would be angry with me if he knew, but what am I to do? He is gone, and there is no companionship or comfort in this forsaken place. Not even a letter from him of late—and no visit in over a year. Of course I do not write to him. How can I when I do not even know where he is?

Still, I am teaching Lily Cate to say “Papa.” That, at least, I can do. Only she doesn’t know what it means and might never have the good fortune to use it.

Rubbing her forehead with cold fingers, Sophie listened for Seamus below. He’d not yet come to his room. What would he think of her sitting here, Anne’s diary open in her lap? She took it up again. One blank page, then two. No more entries had been made till spring.

19 March, 1780

Along the alley the cherry trees are budding. I long to smell the honeysuckle Seamus planted in honor of our wedding day.

Lily Cate is running now. I cannot catch her. Myrtilla is good with her, which eases my conscience and leaves me to my leisure.

3 May

I have met a man . . .

Sophie’s breathing thinned. Though she had never been courted, had never been kissed, and was untried as to the ways of a man with a woman, she sensed what Anne’s next words would be.

There came a footfall on the stair. Seamus? She shut the book, forgetting to mark her place. The silk ribbon slipped to the floor and she bent to retrieve it, heart jumping. After going to her satchel, she hid the diary in the bottom beneath her belongings. She would take it to Three Chimneys, out of harm’s way. There she would dispose of it if it continued to haunt her.

She had no heart to read on, if only for Seamus’s sake.

“More snow is falling, Papa.”

Lily Cate stood in his bedchamber doorway, still clad in her nightgown, her hair hanging down in fat ringlets like sausages. It was dawn, frosty light edging the windowpanes. The house was still bitterly cold despite the near constant fires.

She was regarding him with a sort of thoughtful awe, as if he had control of the weather and could make the sun shine instead. He finished buttoning his breeches and went to her, not wanting to waste the moment. With his shirt untucked and his feet bare, he took a chair nearest the fire and set her on his knee. “What are you really telling me?”

“I want to see Miss Sophie.” She looked up, her fingers plucking at the smooth seam of his linen shirt as she waited for his answer. “Can we go to Three Chimneys now?”

“At six o’clock in the morning?”

She nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid the snow will soon be so deep we cannot.”

He looked to a window where the sky was leaden gray. The slight ache of his joints, his bad hand, told him they’d be snowbound for days. “She’s likely still abed.” The stray thought was so pleasant it sent the heat crawling up his neck. “A lady needs her rest.”

“I suppose I should have my lessons first.” Her chin quivered. “I would ask Miss Townsend to go with me, but you told me not to talk so much of Miss Sophie, remember?”

“All I said was that you need to attend to your schooling and be less glib.”

She studied him. “What does
glib
mean?”

“
Glib
means ‘gabby’—talking too much. You don’t usually have a problem with this, but ’tis better to be quiet at lessons.”

“I promise to be quiet if you take me to see Miss Sophie.” Reaching up, she took his unshaven jaw in her little hands and kissed his chin. Overcome, he shut his eyes. She’d never kissed him before. Not once. And it didn’t matter that it was merely a means to an end. At that moment he would have taken her to England to see the king. “Please, Papa.”

He nearly couldn’t speak. “You don’t have to travel to Three Chimneys. Miss Menzies is right here.”

“Here?” She looked about. “Where?”

He gestured toward the adjoining door. Scrambling off his lap, she started away, but he caught her hand. “She was up rather late, and I don’t want her disturbed—”

The door in question cracked open and silenced him. Sophie’s voice crept out. “Are you decent, General?”

“Aye.” Seamus looked down at his state of undress, unwilling to refuse her entry. “Decent enough.”

Lily Cate rushed toward the barely open door, the joy on her face immeasurable. He watched as Sophie peeked round the door frame, suspended in a moment he wanted to hold close forever.

And then the thought of Annapolis cut in.

Without a word, he finished dressing and went below to his study. Already his mind was taking him places he had no wish to go. What if Sophie found the city to her liking? Or Glynnis convinced her to stay on as nurse? What if she didn’t come back?

What did it matter?

But somehow it did.

The only one happy with the arrangement would be Miss Townsend.

Clad in her warmest cape and bonnet, Sophie left for Annapolis in the Ogilvy coach two days later, her purse holding what little money she’d gotten from the sale of her father’s remaining belongings in Roan. A small marble bust of King George had brought nothing but sneers, though his collection of history books and fine thistle pipes had put a few pounds in her pocket. But would they ever get there?

The coachman shouted down at the first change of horses. “Worse weather on the way—I can feel it in my bones!”

Unconcerned, Sophie settled in, a foot warmer of hot coals beneath her feet, glad for the change of scenery. Studying the white landscape through the coach window, she found herself clinging to all the landmarks she knew by heart. The Roan River sluiced through the valley like a satin ribbon, partially frozen, the hills around it gentle and familiar. She didn’t look back. Tried to ignore the urge to dwell on her midnight supper with Seamus. Yet his low words to her wouldn’t let her go.

You’re a riddle, Sophie Menzies . . . a beautiful, bewildering riddle.

After that, all had blurred. She’d left Shay’s wife, Kaye, in good health and spirits, the baby nursing and thriving. Lily Cate had not cried, only asked when she’d be back, as if she’d been warned by her father to rein in her emotions. Somehow Lily Cate had knit herself to Sophie so tightly she feared the tie could never be unknotted.

As for Seamus, he’d simply stood a few feet from her, saying little. Anne’s diary was hidden in the bottom of her valise beneath her smallclothes and dresses. She was relieved to have snuck it out of Tall Acre, out of Seamus’s reach, but was troubled nonetheless. Guilt clawed at her and left her wanting to be rid of it for good.

Annapolis, unknown to her, would be a welcome diversion. Perhaps she’d find the elusive answers to her future there, gain the distance she desperately needed. Edinburgh, once a sort of prison, now seemed her only refuge.

She waited till the next change of horses to pull out Anne’s diary. Reading in the coach made her queasy, but she was driven by a need to finish.

3 May

I have met a man, the erstwhile master of Early Hall, an Englishman. His name is Tobias Early. He has sent over a traveling wheelwright from Richmond, come to make me a riding chair. Strangely enough, Mr. Early reminds me of Seamus. Tall and strapping and quick to laugh. He says he will take me out once the chair is finished. He is quite fond of Lily Cate. Unmarried, he has no children of his own.

12 June

First time out in my new Windsor riding chair. Left at noon and didn’t come home till half past five. The day was lovely. Just the two of us. Tomorrow we shall have a picnic. I want to show Tobias the little spot downriver rife with wild roses.

23 June

The heat leaves me quite wilted in the house. If not for my rides with Tobias, I do not know what I would do. Fresh air and exercise are good for what ails us. Isn’t that what Seamus always said?

No word from him other than a short letter. He knows I do not care for his Patriot sentiments. Tobias agrees with me. He secretly hopes the British win the war. The colonies cannot resist so formidable a foe, says he. General Washington is but a man, not a god.

31 August

Tobias has gone. The rains of late summer have come, and my mood falls with them. Riggs has refused to fill my order for absinthe with the apothecary. He says Seamus forbids it. The violent fury I flew into did not move him. It never does.

11 October

I am undone. Myrtilla suspects. She will tell Seamus when he comes home. Her loyalty to him has no end. Only Seamus may not ever come back, I told her, so she can keep her secret—and mine. My sister tells me I must come to Williamsburg and go into seclusion. Seamus need never know. I tremble to think what he would do if I am found out. Still, I am not sorry to have had my time in the sun. If he was at home, none of this would have happened. He is entirely to blame . . .

There were more entries, each shorter and more scrawling as if written in the dark. Sophie tucked the diary away, harassed in spirit.

She arrived in Annapolis in the grip of an icy rain, heart full of Seamus and head full of Anne. Glynnis was sleeping, so her sister, Elizabeth, showed Sophie upstairs. A tiny attic bedchamber awaited, and she had a few moments alone as Elizabeth went below to make tea.

She opened her valise and took out the diary. She’d finally finished reading it, every word. Stepping toward the hearth, she weighed her actions, wanting to protect Seamus. Lily Cate.

If she destroyed it, would she feel a profound rush of relief? Or would the lick of guilt remain?

Could the day get any worse?

First, no Sophie Menzies. And then no governess either.

Sophie had been away for nigh on a month; Amity Townsend had been gone a mere twenty-four hours. No note. No excuses. Just a silent, secretive departure.

It was quickly apparent who was most missed.

The rattling clink of cutlery and the everlasting echo of the dining room nearly stole Seamus’s appetite, as did Lily Cate’s somber expression as night settled in. Across from him, she was fighting tears, pushing him nearer the cliff’s edge of despair.

“Papa, why is the dining room so big?”

“’Tis not so big when it’s full of people. Guests . . . a family.”