True Heart (3 page)

They walked side by side, same as they had in ports throughout the world. Six years older than Cameron, MacAdoo Dundas was his oldest friend and best confidant. They'd been raised together at Roward Castle, the ancestral home of Cameron's mother's people, the Lochiel Camerons. They'd spent a year at the English court. They'd wenched and adventured together. They'd grieved over the loss of Virginia. They gambled on almost everything.

Cameron was ahead in the wagers. “My quid says she'll give Cathcart a lass this time.”

MacAdoo hefted his own seaman's sack, which contained his prized possession: bagpipes. With a skill even the old Highlanders envied, he could woo a hesitant lass or bring tears to the eyes of the crustiest seaman.

Grinning, MacAdoo said, “That's because you let that comely shopgirl in Calais talk you into a pretty doll rather than a set of soldiers.”

The gift was stored in Cameron's bag along with his own special keepsake: the silk scarf Virginia had given him so many years ago. Other than constant regret, it was his only remembrance of her. The cloth had yellowed and frayed with age, but Cameron's memories of the girl were still fresh.

The image of Virginia's brooch rose in his mind as vivid as the day he'd first seen the delicate ring of hearts with an arrow running through.

Cameron stopped in his tracks and blinked. The picture became real. Before him loomed a wall of hogsheads. Burned into the wood of one of the barrels was the symbol created almost a decade ago by Virginia MacKenzie.

His heart pounded, and the ale he'd drunk with his crew just moments ago turned sour in his belly. No one else had seen the hallmark before Virginia's disappearance. She said it had been her secret gift in honor of their betrothal. By candlelight, she'd embroidered the scarf for him. After her disappearance, when Cameron had relayed to her father the details of that last meeting in the stables at Rosshaven, the duke of Ross confessed to being in the loft at the time. He had overheard their argument, but he had not seen Virginia's hallmark.

Cameron had thought never to see her symbol again.

“What's amiss?” MacAdoo said.

With a shaking hand, Cameron pointed to the design.

“Sweet Saint Ninian,” MacAdoo whispered. “Isn't that a match to your scarf?”

Cameron put down his burden and peered closer at the design. With only a slight variance, a common heraldic crown over the top, the symbol was the same. The hearts were more perfectly drawn, as if a woman rather than a lass had fashioned them.

From the ashes of certainty, a spark of hope flickered to life.

Virginia could be alive.

The thought staggered him.

MacAdoo grasped Cameron's arm. “What's wrong? Have you gone light in the head?”

Mouth dry, hands shaking, Cameron leaned against the stack of tobacco casks. Past disappointments warned him to take caution. But what were the odds of another person combining the arrow of Clan Cameron, his mother's Highland family, with the heart of love in this exact fashion? No coincidence appeared before him; Virginia was alive and this drawing was proof. Or was it a cry for help?

“Stay here,” he ordered.

Stuffing the hogshead under his arm, he located Quinten Brown, captain of the merchantman.

“From where did this hallmark come?”

Brown swept off his three-cornered hat and tucked it under his arm. His hair reeked of the fragrance of pine, a favorite scent among seamen. “Why would you be asking, Cunningham?” he said in his clipped English speech. “Ain't the brandy trade enough for you?”

In his place, Cameron would also be protective of his livelihood; any businessman would. To allay the man's worry and loosen his tongue, Cameron fished a sack of coins from his waistcoat. “I've seen this design, and it's very important to me. I've no intention of heeling in on your tobacco trade.”

Satisfied, Brown pocketed the gold. “ 'Course you ain't. What would you want with my trade when you got all them friends at court. Rumor has it you've talked the Cholmondeleys out of their daughter.”

The Lady Adrienne Cholmondeley had never been farther from Cameron's mind. “Tell me what you know about this cask.”

“I know all of the tidewater plantations.”

The cask had come from Virginia. How ironic. “What about the plantation where this cask originated?”

“I'll tell you what I know o' the matter. The cooper at Poplar Knoll—Rafferty's his name—always favored the plain crown, even after the colonies was lost to us.” He traced the design. “This girlish mark, the hearts 'n' arrow on that barrel, I ain't seen it afore now.”

“Then how do you know this tobacco came from there?”

“The new mistress herself come aboard to pay her respects to me.” Rocking back on the heels of his bucket top boots, the seaman clutched his lapels. “Her husband, Mr. Parker-Jones, bought the plantation more'n a year ago. I tell you true, Cunningham, the slaves 'n' servants o' that place are praising God. The old owner and his wife were devils and more.”

Cameron had scoured every port in the British Isles, the Baltic, Europe, and even the slave markets of Byzantine. He'd searched Boston, the cities on Chesapeake Bay, and even the Spanish-held New Orleans. “Where is this plantation?”

“Poplar Knoll? The tidewaters of Virginia.”

Cameron had sailed those waters but not in many years. With his father serving in the House of Commons, Cameron now favored the shorter European trade routes. “On the York River?”

“No. The James, just west of Charles City.”

“The south or the north shore?”

“South if I'm remembered of it. Fine dock with lovey doves carved into the moorings. Yes, south side.”

At the least, the person who'd crafted this hallmark had some knowledge of Virginia. If she were on an isolated plantation, that would explain why he hadn't found her. For years after her disappearance, the lost war with the colonies had limited shipping traffic, and little news traveled out of tidewater Virginia.

Anticipation thrumming through him, he thanked the captain.

“Keep the cask, Cunningham. You paid good coin for it.”

Rejoining MacAdoo, Cameron made his way to Napier House, home of Virginia's sister, Agnes. Now the countess of Cathcart, Agnes was the only family member who still believed that Virginia was alive.

Dear God,
he prayed,
let it be so.

Poplar Knoll Plantation

Tidewater Virginia

Planting would be upon them soon. From dawn's first light until sunset or rain forced them to stop, the indentured and the enslaved would hunker in the tobacco fields.

Virginia shifted on the bench, her back aching at the thought. Across the weaving shed, the strongest of the slaves dismantled the looms used to weave book muslin, the fabric of necessity for slaves and bond servants. Everyone, even the pregnant females, worked in the fields until harvest. At first frost, the looms would come out and the weaving would begin again.

Life at Poplar Knoll would continue for another year. But three harvests hence, Virginia's indenture would end. The old bitterness stirred, but she stifled it. This was her home for now, and she'd make the best of it. She'd tried escape once, nine years ago. For penalty, three years had been added to her servitude. For punishment, she'd been shackled at night until her twelfth birthday. Freedom would come. Three years from now, she'd have money in her purse, new shoes and a traveling coat, and passage to Williamsburg. From there—

“Duchess!”

Noise in the room ceased.

Virginia looked up. Merriweather, the smartly dressed butler from the main house, strolled toward her. Past sixty years of age, Merriweather had snow white hair, which contrasted sharply with his thick black brows.

“Wash your hands and face, Duchess. Mrs. Parker-Jones wants to see you.”

No one addressed Virginia as Virginia. They hadn't believed her story about who she was and how she'd come to the colonies almost a decade ago. When she'd proclaimed herself the daughter of the duke of Ross, they'd laughed and named her Duchess. She'd been a frightened child of ten.

Anniegirl, a slave with blue eyes and pale woolly hair, slapped her hands against her cheeks. With too much drama, she said, “Oooh, Duchess. Maybe Mr. Horace Redding himself has come to call on you—his most ardent disciple.”

In his essays styled for the ordinary man, Horace Redding had struck a balance between the conservative and the liberal philosophers of the day. Many considered Redding's first pamphlet,
Reason Enough,
the moral cornerstone of the revolutionary movement in America. Once a Glaswegian harnessmaker, he had been immortalized in song and script and dubbed the freedom maker. To Virginia, his words served as the voice of logic and a link, although weak, to Scotland.

She chuckled. “If Redding has come, shall I beg one of his handkerchiefs for you?”

Anniegirl's sister, Lizziegirl, older by two years and dark like their mother had been, dropped the yarn she'd been winding. “An' a lock of his hair if you please.”

Merriweather cleared his throat. “That's enough sauce from the two of you.”

At eleven and nine, the girls squirmed with the need to defy any order. Their mother, a slave, had befriended Virginia. Their father was a beast named Moreland, the former owner of Poplar Knoll. He'd never touched Virginia, but her skin crawled at the thought of him and his wife and the misery they had made of her life.

Their brother, Georgieboy, laughed. “You're in trouble.”

Lizziegirl stuck out her tongue. “The master'll sell you to mean ol' Mr. Pendergrast.”

Georgieboy paled and shrank back. The neighboring planter whipped his own slaves rather than leave the task to his overseer.

“Silence!” Giving the girls a final warning, which had the desired effect, Merriweather ordered Georgieboy out, then turned to Virginia. “You've done nothing wrong, Duchess. The mistress hastened me to say so.”

Virginia put aside the hatband she'd been tooling for the wagonmaster. Since Mr. Parker-Jones had purchased Poplar Knoll almost two years ago, Virginia had spoken to the mistress only once. Did this summons also involve the design Virginia had branded, without permission, into one of the hogsheads? Hopefully not, for she'd come away from the meeting with a small victory and an apology from the mistress, who assured her the matter was ended. To replay the woman's kindness, Virginia had painted a river scene, carved a frame, and presented it to Mrs. Parker-Jones.

Encouraged, Virginia went to the table and washed her face in the bucket of clean water. Her fingers were stained from the dye she'd applied to the leather hatband before tooling, and the soap had no effect. She untied her apron and took the comb from her basket. She'd carved the comb herself.

As they left the shed and made their way through the servants' hamlet, she combed her hair and tied it at her nape. Just past her shoulders, her hair would have to be trimmed before summer, else she'd swelter in the sun.

“She'll not be seeing you in the front parlor, Duchess.” No rancor hardened Merriweather's words, and Virginia smiled. She might be a bond servant, but never had she been a sloven.

Over the years, her footsteps had helped keep the paths worn smooth. Half-a-dozen trails led from the hamlet, which consisted of ten wooden houses with earthen floors. A vegetable patch to the south of the buildings provided enough food for everyone, even those in the main house. To the east lay the henhouse and the pigsty. Firewood from the forest to the west was plentiful.

The Parker-Joneses preferred slave labor to indentures. As the only female bond servant remaining at Poplar Knoll, Virginia now lived alone in one of the houses. She slept on a pallet stuffed with straw, and her few possessions wouldn't even fill a hatbox. But she would not feel sorry for herself; she'd hold her head high and think of the day when she'd be free.

She paused at the herb garden, pinched a stem of mint, and stuck it in her bodice. The clean smell masked the odor of leather and strong soap.

“What's gotten into Lizziegirl?” Merriweather asked.

“Georgieboy told her that Mr. Moreland was her father, too.”

His mouth turned down in disgust. A Cornishman, Merriweather had emigrated to Virginia after the surrender at Yorktown. He'd been a reader of the news by trade, and the old master had taken such a liking to him he'd offered Merriweather the esteemed post of butler. Although Merriweather didn't precisely gossip, he managed to keep the servants at the plantation aware of the important goings-on at the main house. Virginia returned the favor.

At the rose trellis, he plucked a dead blossom. “The old master should have done something about those children of his besides turn his back on them.”

Few social issues stirred Virginia's ire as this one did. “He should have left their mother on her pallet in the slave quarters, where she belonged. As if she had a choice, though.”