True Heart (23 page)

When Agnes began a story about her children's dancing master, Cameron's patience snapped. “Oh, please,” he said, “can we get to the stable boy's sleeping habits and be done with it.”

Virginia knotted her fists, but she didn't look up.

Agnes shot him a withering stare. “My, my, aren't we testy today?”

“She's done it again—led you on a conversational goose chase.” Because she refused to look at him, Cameron added, “All we know about her is what we discovered last night.”

That got her attention. She tried to glower at him, but fresh embarrassment spoiled the effect. “Last night I made a glutton of myself on Mary Bullard's trifle. The excitement of the evening dwindled from there.”

She could bite, he decided, but so could he. “So you enjoyed the trifle. Was it your first?”

The instant she grasped the double meaning, her mouth tightened. “And my last until I find one that sits better with me the next day.”

His pride stinging, Cameron retaliated. “What about the painter? The woman who moved to Kentucky.”

She pricked her finger. “You mean Duchess, the bond servant?”

The hammock stilled. “Cameron, I doubt she made friends with a bond servant.”

Unwittingly Agnes had again driven Virginia to retreat. Cameron would have none of it. “Put that way, Agnes, I doubt she'll admit it.” With remarks like that for incentive, Virginia would keep her secrets.

Agnes worried her bottom lip. “Right again, Cameron.”

Virginia put away her sewing. “Duchess and I were friends. Her father was the overseer.”

Agnes spat an expletive. “A man indentured his own daughter? He should be skinned with a dull, salty knife.”

As if she were explaining the difference between cotton and wool, Virginia said, “Not all men are honorable, certainly not that overseer.”

Had the overseer been cruel to Virginia, or was he too a figure of her imagination? For a certainty, some man had hurt her. “Was he unkind to you?”

Reaching up, she extinguished the lantern. “I did not know him.”

Not an answer, but her tone held no loathing, and she smiled, further confusing Cameron. “Yet you befriended his daughter.”

Agnes fairly preened. “The MacKenzies are always hospitable and charitable.”

Virginia's smile was as sunny as the day had been. “At the time, I did not know that I was a MacKenzie. Charity did not enter our friendship. We were the same age; it was natural that we become friends.”

A gust of wind from the north sent the sails flapping. Cameron adjusted his course. Virginia turned her face to the breeze and watched the crewmen trim the sail.

Determined to delve deeper, Cameron said, “You never suffered a cruelty at Poplar Knoll?”

“Oh, yes.” She rolled her eyes. “Every time the chimneys were swept. We had to dust and scrub for days afterward.”

He decided she could make light work of a revolution. She would not belittle or ignore their intimacy. “What happened to Duchess?” he asked.

Virginia dangled the gown over the kitten; it sprang on spindly legs and latched onto the cloth. “She was fortunate. She caught the eye of a visiting glazier, a freeman. He came back for her when her indenture ended. They were wed at Poplar Knoll and moved to Pennsylvania.”

Aha! She'd mispoken. If she talked about herself using the guise of another person, she could at least tell the truth. “Pennsylvania?” he asked. “I'm certain you said they went to Kentucky.”

She watched him so closely he wondered if she could read his mind. “By way of Philadelphia, where he had yet to complete a commissioned work. Then they moved to Kentucky, where there's no taxes and plenty of land, but only for those with hearty spirits.”

If that was meant as an insult to Cameron, it fell short of the mark. “Phrased so romantically, I'm tempted to go there myself.”

“I'm sure they will welcome you.”

And she did not, that much was clear. He had news for her. “I'd resolve to repay them in kind, but as I recall, you would not. In your mind, resolve is much overrated.”

If a look could cut, he'd be sliced to ribbons. Virginia turned to her sister. “Would you go there, Agnes?”

“To avoid taxes? I'd be tempted.”

Virginia embraced the topic. “The colonists revolted over taxes.”

She did not include herself but spoke of the Americans as other people.

Sounding like the last great scholar, Agnes said, “All wars are fought over money or wealth or the rule of it.”

“Precisely,” Virginia replied, rescuing the gown from the kitten's sharp claws and completely ignoring Cameron. “Better the money stays here than go to England.”

In a smooth move that did not upend the hammock, Agnes got to her feet. “English expansion allowed Cameron to trade in China.”

He wouldn't be baited by Agnes MacKenzie Napier; he intended to get rid of her. “A willingness to lose all to pirates and foul weather allows me to trade with other lands.”

Agnes grinned and snatched up the kitten. “With a prince's wealth for prize, which you quickly spent on the purchase of that mansion in Glasgow.”

That made him chuckle; Napier House was grand by the standards of royalty. “Me, own a mansion?”

Virginia eased off the barrel and edged toward the bow. Cameron cursed himself for once again allowing her to steer the conversation away from herself. He called her back. “You'll be glad to know that one of Agnes's finest qualities is her sense of knowing when she's gone far enough to regret it. Good night, Agnes.”

“Now you just wait a minute.” Agnes marched up to him. “I won't be sent off to bed by you.” In a quieter voice, she said, “Sweeten your disposition or I could make a slip of the tongue that you will regret.”

She meant his affair with Adrienne Cholmondeley. He could make Virginia understand; she wasn't naive. She was also moving back to her spot near the barrels.

If Agnes persisted, he'd threaten to tell the world that he caught her disheveled and deflowered the morning after with a naked earl of Cathcart. “Let's speak of happier times, Agnes. Like the first time I saw you in Napier's laboratory.”

Through narrowed eyes, she glared at him. “You're a wretch.”

She could curse him in any tongue, so long as the words prefaced her exit. To that end, he feigned confusion. “I doubt Mary would even be interested.”

Real anger flashed in her brown eyes. “A man might think twice.”

Into the heated moment, Virginia said, “Please don't quarrel.”

Ignoring the protest, Agnes scowled. “Pardon me while I launder my small silks.” She smiled at Virginia, then moved to the hatch.

Cameron couldn't help himself; she was leaving them alone, and quarreling with Agnes MacKenzie had been a way of life for too many years. Besides, Virginia remained with him. “Agnes . . .” When she turned, he said, “My tartans could use a wee bit of freshening.”

She went still in surprise. In an expression reminiscent of her father, she cocked a warning brow and pointed a finger at him. “Clever repartee does not excuse you of poor manners, but . . .”

He had a plan to busy Agnes, and as captain of this ship, he could expect cooperation from the crew. “But?”

“But it makes you a passing fair traveling companion.” She glanced at Virginia, then glared at Cameron. “If you forget yourself with my sister, Papa will want to deal with you.”

“There's no chance of that,” he said, loud enough for Virginia to hear.

“Stop.” Virginia pounded the barrel. “I am not a child anymore, and I resent you—both of you—speaking as if I'm not here. I've lost my memory, Cam, not my pride or my ability to feel.”

She'd lost her innocence, and that should be the most precious memory of all. He'd make certain she didn't forget it again. “Agnes and I always bicker,” he said. “Were you not here, we'd argue over the color of the sky.”

“Cam?” said Agnes, suddenly excited. “Virginia, you called him Cam, not Cameron. Have you remembered something else?”

Time alone with Virginia was ticking away. Cameron cursed his luck; Agnes would not leave them now.

“Yes.” Virginia looked up at him. “I've remembered the difference between good and poor behavior.”

She was referring to lust and the regret in her eyes was clear. He'd change that. “You remembered good manners at the same moment you recalled my name? How flattering. Tell me every detail. Did my name come to you in a breathy whisper, or did you cry out in the night?”

Agnes spoiled the moment by touching Virginia's cheek. “Be gentle with her, Cameron. She's working very hard to remember, and she needs her rest. You're so pretty. Every eligible nobleman in Europe will want to meet you.”

Virginia took the kitten from Agnes, then moved to the companionway. “I'm not a walkabout girl, too naive to resist a charming stranger, titled or not. He might engage my affections for an evening but only that.”

He snatched up the challenge before the insult slapped him in the face. If she thought she could ignore him, she was in for the fifth great revelation.

*  *  *

The next day he began an all out campaign to prove her wrong. Getting her alone posed the biggest obstacle. He cornered her in the galley, trapped her near the laundry barrels, and surprised her in the necessary. What did he get for all his careful maneuvering? A knife and a mountain of turnips to pare, shriveled hands and an aching back, and a slap to his face that made him wince when he thought of it.

His frustration grew to dangerous levels.

*  *  *

On the evening of the fourth day out of Norfolk, after Agnes had gone to bed, Virginia decided that the situation with Cameron couldn't go on as it was. She dragged herself up the companionway steps. She must talk to him. They couldn't continue to snap at each other; the insults had begun to hurt.

She'd been overconfident and naive in spite of her earlier declaration to the contrary. She'd forgotten propriety. In a scandalously short time, Cameron had had her naked on her back, crying out his name. She knew better, but she'd confused the young man he'd been with the skilled seducer he'd become. They'd only been acquainted for a few days. The shame of it chipped away at her pride and threatened her confidence, but avoiding him was making the situation worse.

As fair winds carried them across the ocean swells, and a half-moon bathed the sky in a pearly light, she joined him at the wheel. From below decks came the skirl of the bagpipes as MacAdoo performed his evening concert.

Neither Cameron nor Virginia spoke.

At length, he chuckled.

“What amuses you?” she asked.

“Watching you embroider. As a lass, you swore that patching sails was the closest you'd ever get to stitchery.”

Grasping the cordiality, she settled herself on a sea chest. “How did we pass the time aboard this ship, besides patching sails?”

“You haven't remembered that?”

“No, not that, but many things. Events. Moments. I remembered being on board and drawing a map but only that. Not how I came to be on the ship or where we were bound. You were still a boy.”

“What passed between us in your recollection?”

“Pleasantries for the most part.”

“Once you didn't talk to me for a week.”

“I know you better now.”

“You know me intimately in case that has also slipped your mind.”

She deserved his anger, but he must see her side of it. “You don't understand. Mama saw us.” Even as she said it, she cringed inside.

“Did you never interrupt your parents during a delicate moment?”

What did that matter? Having no answer, she fell back on the facade. “I don't know.”

“Of course you don't. You only remember in bits and snatches. Be sure to let me know when you remember the bits about our betrothal and the snatches that involve our future. Taken together with your recently yielded maidenhead, 'tis enough to send us scrambling for a church.”

Outraged, she slapped her hand on the wheel and waited for him to look at her. When he did, she said, “If that is a proposal of marriage, I must decline.”

She stomped off and spent the next few days embroidering every garment she could find. A triple row of thistles at the hem and neck of her sleeping gowns. Odd-shaped leaves on her bed linens.

Cameron's anger ebbed, and in its place, confusion ruled. But loneliness was also a part of him. He missed her. He had vowed to help her, but pride got in the way. That must end.

As was her habit, she came on deck after the watch change, when Cameron was busy at the wheel. To pursue her, he must abandon his post. If he wanted to talk to her, he must call out to her and risk a rejection. Well, he'd never been overprideful for long, not where she was concerned.

“Virginia! Join me. We'll call a truce.”

She turned, and in the next instant, her indifference melted to a smile of affection. He watched her stroll toward him, her head high, her long legs a definite allure in seaman's breeches. She wore a kerchief to contain her thick hair, and her MacKenzie tartan draped her shoulders.

“I meant what I said about a truce between us.”

“Then tell me what we did on the ship as children.”

Patience, he reminded himself. “You drew maps and I helped.”

She stepped onto the sea chest and stared at the ocean swells. To the unknowing, she seemed at peace. Cameron knew better. She was simply gearing up for a battle of words.

“You sharpened my pencils?” she said.

“I thought you used ink and quill.”

“Did I?”

Her expression was too guileless to hide a lie, or did he simply want to believe her? Either way, they were talking civilly and that was a step. “Yes. Your sister Sarah gifted you with the supplies on your sixth birthday.”

“I'd like to see those maps.”