The Mistress of Tall Acre (43 page)

He left his study their first eve home, the strike of the clock and his own rumbling stomach announcing supper.

Mrs. Lamont met him in the foyer, a worried pinch to her brow. “We’re ready to serve, General, but Mistress Ogilvy is sleeping.”

Sleeping? At this hour? He said nothing, and she continued on genially. “I’ll delay the meal till you’re ready.”

The aroma wafting from the summer kitchen convinced him Cook had prepared a feast. He thanked her and moved to the private hall of their bedchamber, the door ajar.

Sophie lay atop the counterpane, a letter from Cosima near at hand. His heart clenched as he took in her abandoned slippers on the rug, so small compared to his own brawny boots. She was on her side, one arm curved beneath her head, her lovely features at rest.

He knew every inch of her yet couldn’t look enough at her. Couldn’t touch her enough. Her skin was soft as lamb’s wool beneath his ravaged hand. Even now he wanted to take the pins from her hair. They winked at him in the light, tiny pearls amidst piercing blackness like stars in a night sky.

He’d grown so used to men. Soldiers. Their vile habits and weaknesses. Their wild snoring and smells. Living with Sophie was bliss. Even in sleep she was ladylike. Delicate. He forgot all about supper.

He sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, a new worry scratching at the surface of his conscience. Was she ill? Fever, an ever-present malady, was spreading in the quarters, though they’d quarantined those most sick. In truth, she’d never looked healthier. She seemed to give out light like a candle.

Flushed from sleep, she turned on her back. “Seamus?” She raised up, and he realized he was blocking her view of the clock. “What time is it?”

“The supper hour.”

Her face dimmed as awareness rushed in. He knew she was thinking of Lily Cate, reliving the heartache all over again. Every morning upon awakening he did the same, spirits sinking as he faced another day without her, the ache never lessening, only lengthening.

“’Twill be our last meal together for a time. I leave for Williamsburg again in the morning. The sheriff wants to see me.”

Her sleepiness fell away. “Oh Seamus, do you think . . .”

Touching her cheek, he reined in his own disappointment. “He said it’s not urgent, to come when I could.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No need. I’ll be away a day or so at the most.” He weighed the implications of telling her about the threat and decided against it. All seemed to know but Sophie and were on alert. “You’re most needed here.”

“Then I shall count the hours till you come back.”

Bending near, he kissed her. “I’ll do the same, aye.”

Smothering a yawn, Sophie rummaged through glass bottles in the stillroom, some highly decorative and some plain. Essential Salt of Lemons. Hill’s Balsam of Honey. James’s Fever Powders. Daffey’s Elixir. Though she was intent on some help for the fever toppling the staff, nothing she’d found or concocted had curbed it yet.

Seamus had left that morning, but she’d hardly had time to ponder it, not with so many servants ill. So far Jenny had been spared, though a baby had died, adding to Tall Acre’s melancholy. Myrtilla was a tireless nurse, working close as Sophie’s shadow. They trod back and forth to the icehouse, applying cold cloths and changing bed linens and dispensing medicine, trying to make the sick more comfortable. Dr. Craik had been summoned but was slow in coming, busy with a smallpox outbreak elsewhere.

Sophie’s bleary gaze fastened on a bottle of absinthe. Anne’s diary had been riddled with its mention, and she shrank from the sight. She shut the cupboard quickly, her breakfast of toast and tea rising to the back of her throat. Swallowing hard, she left the stillroom but made it no farther than an iron bench against an ivy-clad wall. If she was perfectly still, the wooziness might pass. She couldn’t fall sick herself, not at a time like this. She’d rest for just a moment, not long enough to be missed.

The gentle drone of June’s bees and the heady scent of honeysuckle lulled her, and she dozed, unmindful of her missing hat or the way her complexion freckled in the sun. Sleep was a refuge, a world beyond the worries of the present.

“Mistress Ogilvy.”

Sophie stirred on the bench. How long had she napped? Too long, her overwarm skin told her.

Mrs. Lamont hovered nearer, still a bit wan from falling ill herself. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor. She’s in the Palladian room as the large parlor is being painted.”

Sophie nodded and thanked her. Probably a neighbor expressing concern and asking about Lily Cate. Standing, she smoothed her skirts and started up the shell walkway to the house.

The shadowed foyer was cool, the door to the Palladian room open. Sophie’s eye was drawn to Peale’s finished portrait above the mantel. She always felt a little start when she saw it, as if staring into a mirror. She, Tall Acre’s unlikely mistress.

The visitor’s back was to her, and she was looking up at the portrait too. Her polonaise skirts were drawn up over lush petticoats trimmed with fine ecru lace, her matching hat trailing periwinkle ribbons.

Sophie’s greeting carried across the elegant room. “Welcome to Tall Acre.”

Slowly, the woman turned, a lace veil obscuring her features. “The general isn’t in, the housekeeper said.”

“He’s away, yes.”

“How unfortunate.” She looked about as if getting her bearings, gaze returning briefly to the portrait.

Sophie gestured toward a settee. “Would you care to sit down?’

“Perhaps . . . I suppose we should make introductions.”

Raising gloved hands, the visitor pulled loose a pin and removed her elaborate hat and veil. Sophie fought to place her, shaken by a strange familiarity she couldn’t quite grasp hold of. Her eyes—were they brown? The woman wasn’t smiling. Her pale, blue-veined features seemed more ice, but even their coldness couldn’t blunt her beauty. She was the most dazzling woman Sophie had ever seen.

“I well remember you.” The words were clipped. Precise. Thoroughly British and unmistakably condescending. “You’re the daughter of Midwife Menzies from Three Chimneys.”

Sophie opened her mouth to reply, but her throat felt like dust. Again, that odd sense of familiarity settled over her then spun away.

“’Tis clear you do not remember me . . . or do not want to.” With a graceful gesture, the visitor settled her hat upon the settee and sank down beside it, chin tipped up proudly. “I am Anne Howard Ogilvy. The mistress of Tall Acre.”

Urging Vulcan on, Seamus fixed his gaze on the road to Williamsburg and ignored the quiet tug that told him to turn back. Lately his battle sense seemed to sharpen, his every instinct on alert. It had served him well on the field but was hardly needed at home, yet here it was again, following on his heels like some faithful, misguided dog.

His thoughts veered to Sophie. She’d been restless in the night, murmuring in her sleep. She seemed preoccupied of late. More emotional. He feared she was taking the fever. He’d had a brief bout of it himself but had worked his way through it despite her protests to stay abed.

Squinting into bright sunlight, he scanned the lay of the land as he rode. Blooming magnolia and catalpa spread across the valley on both sides of him, commanding his attention and making light of his fears. All the extravagance of early summer held sway, a warm wind drying out the muddy ruts in the road.

Another tug to his conscience.
Sophie.
Having become one with her in the truest sense, was he now able, even away from her, to sense her need of him?

Heeding it, he reined his stallion sharply round in a turn reminiscent of battlefield retreats. In less than an hour of hard riding he’d reached the borders of Tall Acre, his practiced eye moving past beloved fences and fields to the long alley where an unfamiliar coach waited near the front steps.

Cutting across the sheep pasture, he cleared a sunken ditch and came to the stables, a noisy rooster crowing his arrival. He stopped long enough to wash up in the laundry where the new bath was nearly in place, then started for the house, casting a last look at the strange coach as he did so.

I am Anne Howard Ogilvy. The mistress of Tall Acre.

Sophie heard the words but couldn’t take them in. They made no sense. Nothing in her mind and heart had prepared her for this moment. Her hands clutched the back of the chair she stood behind, her nails digging into the lush blue brocade.

Anne was dead of a fever, buried in Williamsburg during the war. Seamus had told her so himself.

“I’m obviously the last person you expected. You’re looking at me as if I’m a ghost.” Anne’s cold half smile was locked in place, her composure seamless, as if she’d rehearsed their meeting. “To reassure you that I am indeed Seamus’s wife, I shall provide you with a few details. My husband bears a scar on his jaw given him by his sister during childhood. More intimately, he has a saber wound on his left thigh from early in the war. He also—”

“Don’t.”
It was the only word Sophie could muster. The wooziness she’d fought for days was winning, tiny flecks of black staining her vision as the blood left her head.

Anne stood and began a slow walk around the room, fingering objects on tables as if reacquainting herself with them. “I don’t know what Seamus has told you. While he was away fighting, threats were made against me. He had so many enemies during the war that I became a target. Fearing for my life and that of my child, I left Tall Acre and fled to Williamsburg. Unfortunately, the danger followed me there, so I sailed for England.”

“You left Lily Cate behind.” In the shock and confusion of the moment, Lily Cate stayed foremost. Was Anne behind her disappearance?

Anne lifted slender shoulders in a shrug. “There was simply no other choice. Crossing the ocean with so small a child . . .” She gave a shake of her head. “My sister and her husband took Lily Cate to raise as their own. They erected a gravestone to quell questions. Once in England I went to Bath, where I have relatives, to gain some safety. Peace.”

Peace? Sophie stared at her. Had she left Seamus peace? Or Lily Cate?

“Now that the war’s been won, I’ve come back to reclaim my rightful place.”

Her rightful place? After leaving a wide swath of lies and brokenness in her wake? Was she . . . mad? Anne paused to look up at the portrait again, clearly vexed. Her thoughts were plain. Sophie was the imposter, the pretender. The real mistress of Tall Acre had returned.

“You must understand I was one of many who fled in the wake of war. But now, peace has come . . .” Anne’s voice trailed away. She was looking past Sophie to the open doorway, expectancy in her expression.

Seamus.

Sickened, Sophie shut her eyes, unwilling to turn around and witness his reaction. The prolonged, stunned silence told her enough.