True Heart (9 page)

As if the movement were natural, Cameron draped an arm around her shoulders. “Tea and berry tarts will be perfect.”

Virginia felt sheltered, even in the casual embrace, and the covetous way Cameron admired her made her heart beat fast.

Merriweather stood there, waiting for something else, but what? Virginia had no inkling.

“Shall I also have rooms prepared?”

Rooms? No. They were leaving right away.

“Not for me,” said MacAdoo. “I'll stay aboard ship.”

“A hot bath and a soft bed would be lovely,” said Agnes.

Virginia almost choked on her own selfishness. Cameron, Agnes, and MacAdoo were surely tired after the long voyage. They would want to rest. A meal must be planned. The table set. Napkins folded. Silver polished. Dozens of other things. Mrs. Parker-Jones must have instructed Merriweather to offer the hospitality of Poplar Knoll to their guests. It was up to Virginia to learn their preferences. But how?

An old image of Lottie came to mind, and Virginia acted accordingly. “I'll have the porter fetch your bags from the boat. Have you brought servants, Agnes?”

“No. My maid only travels with me if Edward or the children come along. I'd be grateful if someone could press my gown before we dine. Unless you do not dress for dinner?”

Cameron stretched out his legs. “I'd fancy seeing you wield an iron, countess.”

Agnes flipped the glove again. “We are offered this observation from a man whose wardrobe consists of a shirt, a strip of tartan cloth, and his Highland pride.”

To Virginia's surprise, Cameron blushed. “I told you Agnes was trouble.”

Virginia envied their easy camaraderie. She'd been a part of that friendship once and would again, but only when she could join in comfortably as an equal. In some circumstances she might have been called to freshen the gown of a visitor. She needed help from the mistress. If she didn't gather her wits and perform the duties of housekeeper, they'd see through her ruse. Pity would follow, and she couldn't bear that thought.

“Watch yourself, Cameron,” Agnes warned. “Virginia doesn't remember you either. I could weave her some juicy tales.”

“Weave away. I've nothing to hide from Virginia, and she knows better than to believe your lies.”

But she had hordes of things to hide from him, from them all.

She rose to tell them what she'd learned in three days on the subject of the evening meal.

Cameron and MacAdoo shot to their feet. That little courtesy was new. Slaves and bondsmen did not rise in the presence of their female counterparts. What other niceties occurred in polite society? She couldn't recall.

To Agnes, she said, “We do wear our best dresses, and the cook serves at nine o'clock this time of year.”

“Must you go?” Agnes asked. “You haven't told us a thing about yourself.”

Once they were safely away from Poplar Knoll, Virginia would be free of those who could expose her. She thought of a truth and cloaked it in humor. “If I don't instruct the staff, you'll be sleeping on a pallet and dining on corncob soup and Tuesday's bread.”

Agnes laughed. “You always were one for a good jest, Virginia. Wasn't she, Cameron?”

“The very best.” Cameron took her wrist and, bending from the waist, kissed her hand. Years ago, the first time he'd performed that courtesy, he'd turned her hand over and spit in her palm. She'd been six and mortified. Now she was curious and moved by him in a very adult way.

Curling her fingers around the kiss, she held it. The look in Cameron's eyes turned absolutely joyous, and when he sent that gaze on an exploration of her, from the coil of her hair to the hem of her dress, she grew warm inside.

He lifted his brows in some sort of approval, as if he knew how affected she'd been by his touch, and, with a knowing grin, promised more.

Discomfited to her toes, she excused herself and went in search of Mrs. Parker-Jones. But she learned that the mistress was still behind closed doors with Captain Brown. In the pantry, Virginia helped Merriweather assemble a tray.

“Thank you for rescuing me. I would have left them to collect dust in the parlor.”

“Don't fret, Duchess . . . pardon me, Virginia.”

“Oh, Merriweather. I shouldn't have lied to them.”

He examined every glass and fork as he set them on the silver tray. “I doubt they'd be pleased to know that you bathed in the river and plucked chickens.”

Shame at labor she'd performed paled in comparison to the despair and loneliness she'd suffered. Those heartaches were hers to bear, but they were also at an end. “They mustn't know.”

“Nor will they. You haven't gotten by all these years on luck.”

“What would you have done? Would you have told them the truth?”

Pausing, he leaned on the sideboard. “You mean, had I your family?”

“Yes.”

A casual shrug and a huff gave him a noble air. “I cannot conceive of such a happening, but . . .”

His faraway look enticed her to say, “Tell me.”

“I think you will have a remarkable life. Were I you, I would rejoice at the prospect.”

Viewed in a positive light, the unexpected events in her life took on a different meaning. Henceforth she vowed to see them that way.

“Remember this, Virginia. You've kept yourself bright and respectable. You no longer cower as you did when the Morelands were here. You hold your head high.”

“But what
about
the Morelands and what they did to me—”

“Shush. That was the worst of your plight, and you came away from it with good character. You counseled the slave children. You gave them dignity and taught them to care for their personal needs. You're obedient, but never have you cowered.”

“I shall miss your good counsel.”

She asked him to offer her excuses to Cameron, Agnes, and MacAdoo. Then she located the porter in the garden, cutting a bunch of spring lilies.

“Are those for Lizziegirl?” she asked.

Georgieboy nodded. “Little sister's pouting because I told her that Moreland was her father, too.”

Perched between two races and accepted by neither, the old master's slave children had a rough go of it. More often than not, this rawboned lad was more sensitive than his younger sisters.

“I believe she was bothered at the
way
you told her, not by the knowing.”

“I just said out the words.”

“Now you must tell her you're sorry. After that, and do not tarry, will you please go to the ship and bring back our guests' luggage?”

“Ain't 'spose to
ax
me, Duchess. Tellin's the freeman's way.”

Bond servants and slaves took orders and asked permission—sometimes for the most personal things. “I'm making a mess of it, Georgieboy.”

“It'll come along to you a little at a time.” He pulled a flower from the bouquet and offered it to her. “You lookin' the proper lady in your fine dress and done-up hair. Fronie says you're wearing them laces.”

Saffronia was the midwife in the slave hamlet. “Most ladies of quality have mastered wearing stays before the ripe old age of twenty.”

“Fronie says white women stupid in their ways.”

“She and the others must keep my secret.”

“She will. But the dockmen said that ship's named for you. You gotta worry about Rafferty.”

The cooper. Months ago, when he'd caught Virginia branding the cask, he couldn't run to the main house fast enough to tattle. Then he'd told everyone in the hamlet that she'd gone mad and would have ruined his entire shipment of barrels had he not stopped her. He'd tormented her, belittled her in front of the whole village. Now he was bitter.

“I'm safe then. My family has no need to visit Rafferty's shed or the hamlet.”

After dinner, over a bracing glass of cider, she sought advice from Mrs. Parker-Jones. Later she made her daily visit to the servants' hamlet. On her return to the main house, she saw Cameron in the formal garden.

The damp air was sweet with the smell of nightblooming sallies. Moths swirled around the lanterns that cast a golden glow over the stone benches and statuary. Before today the garden had been just a pretty place; now it felt cozy and inviting.

“You were very quiet at dinner,” he said, patting the place beside him on the bench.

It had taken all of her concentration to get through the ceremony of the meal without embarrassing herself. Cameron had tried to engage her in conversation. Even when she'd observed the others, he'd watched her. “I enjoyed hearing you and Agnes speak about the MacKenzies.”

“The
MacKenzies?”

She did feel like a stranger to her kin. Sitting beside him she thought of what Merriweather had said. “I'll get used to it all.”

“Have you been trysting with a beau?”

Her first response was to laugh. Women might be outnumbered five to one in tidewater Virginia, but for servants on an isolated plantation, odds didn't matter. Rules did, and breaking them, even for love, led to more bondage. “I've been on a quest for new shoes.”

He picked up one of the slippers. “Your cobbler made these? They're very fine.”

They were her first slippers in ten years. Serviceable boots or bare feet were the footwear of bond servants. “We make everything here. We weave our cloth, grow our food, and in winter we pay the Indians to hunt for us.”

“You have a silversmith?”

Tripped up again. “No. Of course not.”

He plucked the newspaper from her hand. “What have you there?”

“The
Virginia Gazette.”

He held the slipper in a delicate way. “Are you interested in politics?”

On this subject she could converse comfortably, even if he was distracting her with the way he caressed that shoe. “I'm interested in what Horace Redding has to say.”

“Are you?” With his thumb, he traced the slight heel. “Burke names him a purveyor of pandemonium.”

“Burke disdains any progress beyond a snail's pace.”

“Paine claims Redding is the voice of unrest.”

“Perhaps, but I dare say we'd still be crowning the trunks of our trees and carrying the weight of an Englishman's yoke without the words of Horace Redding to inspire us.”

“Us. So your mother says. She can still bring fire and brimstone when the subject turns to British rule.”

The oddest irony of all was the fact that Virginia's mother had been a bond servant from Richmond before traveling to Scotland and marrying the duke of Ross. The very place Virginia had been named for had become her prison.

But she was free now and eager to reacquaint herself with Cameron Cunningham. Dinner had been too brief and Virginia too hesitant. “How do you see Horace Redding?” she asked.

The subject pleased him, for he turned sideways on the bench and faced her. “He always has an entourage around him. He's a bit of a braggart, and he can't drink two pints and keep his chin above the table.”

Shocked, she ignored the hand he placed on her shoulder and said, “He's no drunkard, and how would you know?”

He shrugged. “ 'Twas all the gossip at Christmas last. He returned to Glasgow then.”

“Do you visit Glasgow often?”

“Aye, I have a house there.”

Both he and Agnes lived in Glasgow. By visiting her sister, Virginia could be close to Cameron. She could also find a way to pay her respects to Horace Redding.

Drums sounded in the hamlet, and the slaves began to sing a favorite song about a lowly weaver's son who slew a tiger and became king of his tribe.

Cameron took her hand and held it tenderly. “I've something to tell you, Virginia. 'Tis of some importance.”

Apprehension engulfed her. He had married. Now he would tell her. From the wariness in his voice, the subject troubled him.

“I'm listening.”

He stared at his hand, which still rested on her shoulder. “We were very close as children.” He traced the neckline of her dress, which was modest by a parson's standard. “You might think that odd, me being eight years older and a lad, but . . . there you have it.”

He looked uncomfortable, and she knew she would ease his way. That might be best, though, for she had much to do before she took her place among her family and friends. Until that day came, frankness would serve her best. “If you tell me I lost above one hundred pounds abetting with you, I will not pay it. A memory loss should absolve a gaming debt.” He, in fact, owed her twenty pounds.

“Will it dissolve a formal betrothal?”

The beautiful music became a buzzing in her ears. “We are betrothed?”

“Aye, on the day before you disappeared.”

She wasn't supposed to know. It followed that she should not care. But she did. Her heart ached at the thought of him taking another. “Do you wish it to be dissolved?”