"I’ve given Mrs. Margaret leave to go to her son and am keeping the steward and a few maids here. There are no workers now and I imagine new ones will have to be found."
"Lady Seavers?"
Rodney sighed and rubbed his sweating neck with one hand. "I can tell you about that over a bite and drink, if you like."
"I’d like to hear about it at once; food can wait. Is she dead?"
"Charlotte Bellamy is dead, sir. Alicia booked passage to America."
"How did you allow her to do that without waiting for word from me?" he stormed.
"I was told you gave her permission to go wherever she pleased."
"I was due out of port when she began babbling about—"
"About her marriage, my lord," Rodney said, his face growing stern and implacable. "She said the bargain was over and you were not interested in the marriage—or her love."
Geoffrey turned away and sulked, then turned back to his servant and blustered, "Love, so she says...but how am I to know...any of a hundred men could have…"
With a movement too fast to predict, he found himself seized by the front of his linen shirt and backed up to the wall. He was not as tall or as strong as Rodney, but had the circumstances been any different, Geoffrey might have given him a good fight. His shock at being so handled by his own servant and friend was so great that he simply stared into Rodney’s angry eyes.
"My lady served you truer than any and I pledged her my aid when you failed to care for her. ‘Twas I who brought her from the country for you to use, and it was meet that I should help her to leave and find people who would give her a home and a chance to start over."
"Aye, Mr. Prentiss," Geoffrey said, trying to soothe him.
"Do no decry her again. Speak as if she is dead, for there lies a grave on this property and Lady Charlotte Bellamy is gone."
"Aye. Let go of me."
"The loyalty she carried was to you and no other."
"Aye," Geoffrey said calmly. "I know that."
Rodney loosed his grip and let Geoffrey stand free of the wall. Geoffrey looked at him first with a frown and then let himself smile. "She certainly got under your skin, didn’t she?"
"She deserved better than she got here."
"Aye," Seavers admitted. "But how do I rectify that? You’ve let her go."
"Perhaps this time it is too late," Rodney said, turning away from his young lord.
"I don’t like the sound of that, Mr. Prentiss. Now come, help me find something to eat and show me this grave that holds Lady Seavers."
A courtyard for burials had been cleared years before by one of the Bellamys, and within it there was a grave, still not covered by a decent marker.
"It is, in fact, Charlotte Bellamy," Rodney told him. "I’d hired a man to watch Perry and the woman he had in keeping on New Street. It wasn’t until the crosses appeared on that street that Perry panicked, for he’d gotten nothing out of you or Alicia. He went straightaway to the king to report that you’d likely hired an impostor, and that he had kept Charlotte Bellamy in lodgings in the city. They fairly laughed him out of Whitehall."
"And the death?"
"For your purposes, sir, we’d planned to bribe a body off the dead cart to be buried here when Alicia sailed. But our work became easier then, for just as Alicia was due to leave, Mr. Scanland reported to me that Perry had just the opposite plan. He bribed the man pulling the dead cart to call the death in his house plague. The girl he had them haul away was dead of stabbing. I feel certain it was Charlotte, though Perry is the only one to know."
"And Perry?"
"I have no idea. I had the body shrouded and carried to Bellerose, with a statement from the man I bribed to get the body, saying it was yielded to me to bury and the death had been reported by Lord Perry. That done, there’s more than one witness to the fact that Perry killed the lass, and we buried her on her own rightful property. No one can accuse you of murder. It cost a good bit."
"I’ll see you settled with, not to worry. Where do I find Alicia?"
"Left to her, you don’t."
"So, she plans to punish me with a great deal of style. And whom do you serve now, Prentiss?"
"I gave my word to her."
"Will it help her to keep it?"
"You cannot get your fleet out of port, my lord. You likely cannot get back into the city, for that matter."
"I can make France and book passage from there, if I know where I’m bound. Did she have arrangements at the other end?"
Rodney turned and started to walk back to the manor, not giving Geoffrey any answer. "Rodney," he called, causing the man to turn and look at him again. "So I’ve bought this trouble with dishonest fare, but tell me, she is alive?" The man nodded. "And it is to America I’m bound if I mean to find her?" Again the man nodded and then walked back toward the house.
Geoffrey stared at the simple grave for a while. The relief of knowing that Alicia was still well and on her way out of the country felt a damn sight better than wondering if she could actually be dead of plague. And Rodney would see her taken care of; his loyalty would not have allowed her to be placed on a dangerous ship with a less than honorable captain, which ruled out most of the ships leaving London.
And then it hit him: he had not seen the Letty in port. A slow smile spread across his face and he chuckled to himself. He couldn’t arrange to leave England without seeing to a good many details, which gave him some time to think on it and time to work his way back into Rodney’s loyalty. Finding her seemed less of a problem than he’d first thought. But still, he was not wise enough to realize that, although finding her could be easy, winning her back might be difficult. After all, the lass loved him, but he’d hurt her deeply.
Whistling, he walked back into the manor to find Rodney and began to mend the damage their friendship had suffered.
Culver Perry sat at a lonely table and had drunk the best part of an ale when the serving maid approached him. "‘E’ll see ye when ‘e can gov’na. ‘E’s in the stable."
"Tell him my business is urgent," Perry said. "I can’t wait while he plays with his animals."
"I said I told ‘im," she whined. "Wait or go, I doubt Armand cares at all."
"Tell him it’s urgent," he insisted.
The wench smirked and moved away from his table and out of sight, muttering as she went. "Bloody ‘igh and mighty nobles ain’t got nothin’ better to do but order simple folk..."
Perry nursed the rest of his ale and waited, his anger having subsided not at all since he left the city. He had worked and worried with the best piece of evidence against Geoffrey Seavers that ever he could have found, and what good had it done? Seavers would not respond to him, the wench he married would not give him so much as her worry, and the Bellamy bitch had done nothing but hound him and screech at him for months on end.
He remembered the night he returned from Whitehall, the sounds of the guns of the fleet of Lowestoft still sounding in the city. The king had told him in a near rage that he found Lady Seavers to be everything he had hoped for and would hear no more slander against her. Perry was ordered out of the palace and preferably out of the city.
"While my navy is fighting and dying at the hands of the Dutch bastards, and my city is being eaten alive by disease, you are here complaining about some fortune you missed, when I never would have allowed you within a mile of that money. Haven’t you had a bit of ill luck with brides as it stands?"
Charles’s words had been clear enough. He was not about to investigate the legitimacy of the inheritance, and he had no patience with Perry’s claims. When Culver argued that the king had been cheated, Charles shouted loudly enough for every courtier and lady within the kingdom to hear. "I don’t care if it’s an orange girl he’s wed, the contract is made and I am done!"
Regardless of the shape of it, Perry was not done. He would find a way to remedy his loss. He’d gone back to the apartments on New Street and told Charlotte of the situation, but the maid got out of hand
and talked too much. From where he sat, he was the only one to know that he had killed twice in his life; both victims were young women who were counting on him to bring them the happiness they deserved.
The innkeeper approached Perry’s table, using his towel to wipe off his balding head. "I’m Armand, innkeeper here."
"There was a wench here nearly two years ago, her name escapes me."
"They come and go," the man said.
"This one was tall and slender, brown hair and light eyes. I remember her clearly as being quiet and bright for a tavern wench. She would have left here almost a year ago with a nobleman bound for London."
Armand sat down at the table and eyed Perry suspiciously. "I can’t say I understand why so many men ask after her." And then he was silent.
Perry pulled the leather purse from his belt and took out a couple of coins to toss onto the table. "Is she back?" he asked the keeper.
"She won’t come back here, I warned her of that. I won’t have her."
"Who else asks after her?"
"Don’t recall the name, says he was from the Colonies, he says." Armand snorted. "The ones that come, they got money, that’s sure. They plop down their gold to ask about her."
"Colonies? What does he look like, the other one?"
"Your age, nearabouts. Lighter hair maybe. Taller, maybe. Can’t recall much. Ordinary sort, but for his clothes."
"Nobleman? Merchant? What, man?"
"Can’t say..." Armand stalled, scratching his chin. Perry pulled another coin from his purse. "He has ships, he says. From the Colonies. Says he’d take her to the Colonies if he could find her. Puts into port here regular and makes it his business to find this wench."
"Merchant, then. Did he give any name at all?"
"No name for himself. Calls his ship the Letty."
"Tilden," Perry said. "Tilden came looking for her."
"Maybe her, maybe not. He was looking for a woman he thought was his sister, lost in the wars. Said he knew where to find her."
"When she left here, the nobleman who took her: was he light-haired and young? My age or younger, with what some maids think a handsome face?"
Armand began to laugh. "The man who took her was hardly handsome and he was my age or older. Huge monster of a man with red hair gone thin and gray and arms big around as your legs."
"His man Prentiss, the mongrel."
Armand shrugged. "I never heard the man’s name, but I let him take the wench. She was no good to me and caused naught but trouble in my tavern. What’s she done?"
"Done?" Perry asked, rising to leave.
"Aye. You’re not the first come asking after her. There was that noble from America wanting her."
"Bit of dumb luck is all," Perry replied. "But at least I know where she is."
"And you aim to find her, too?" Armand asked, gathering up his coins and counting his money.
Perry didn’t answer, for in truth he wasn’t sure what he meant to do about the girl. He walked toward the door of the inn.
"I hope she’s got a few more on the way to ask after her," the keeper said. "I’ve made a bit more money since she’s gone than I did when she worked. Lazy whores."
Perry looked over his shoulder at Armand and raised one noble brow to peer at him.
"You’re the one," Armand said in realization. "You’re the one that courted her and made off without paying your keep."
Culver first smiled and then laughed loudly, leaving the inn, and he was still laughing as he mounted his horse and rode away.
Fifteen
"Do you have any idea how long you’ve been standing there?" Preston asked.
Alicia turned to face him. She had been watching the beach as the Letty rocked along the home stretch. The trees that lined the shore seemed to wave in the balmy breezes. Her stomach jumped in anticipation, fear, and hopelessness.
"Are we very close?" she asked.
"Our home is farther inland, upriver. It will take us another full day of traveling by barge to get there."
She turned back to watch the shoreline with a deep sigh. She had quickly changed her clothes to come and stand at the rail at the first sight of land because she assumed that this shipping family must live right on the ocean. But she saw only unattractive shacks that looked nothing like the houses in England.
"I want to see the savages and the blackamoors," she said, a lilt of excitement in her voice. "And the woods and beasts."
Preston chuckled. "It’s not the wilderness you’ve been led to believe. We have Negroes and bondservants who do most of the difficult farming and loading for us—and who take care of the house. The Indians trouble us very little and indeed have moved themselves as far from our populated areas as possible. They like the fighting as little as we, I imagine. As for hunting, it differs little from England, except that game is more plentiful here."
"Negroes and bondservants," she thought aloud. "How many?"
"Only a couple of hundred," he replied casually.
Her head came up with a jolt. Geoffrey employed a total of seven servants for their London household.
"The plantation is so large and the fields so endless that it would be impossible to manage without slaves or indentured convicts." He shrugged with an air of acceptance. "Without at least two hundred, ours would be considered a modest farm."
"You live with the blackamoors and convicts?"
He laughed a little at what he imagined must be going through her mind. "It takes on a strangely different meaning than in England, love. My father only buys indenture papers on those convicted criminals whose crimes are not atrocious. Murderers, for instance, don’t work on our land, and thieves that steal again simply add more time to serve without pay. The Negroes stay mostly in the fields except for the ones who are bright and quick enough to speak the language well and can work in the house, docks, and warehouses. And they have their own homes, their own villages, away from the big house."
Her brow was furrowed in confusion. Servants’ quarters were familiar to her, but special communities for the servants and laborers was something she couldn’t comprehend. "When I worked for Armand, we slept in the attic so that our presence did not cost one space that could be rented to guests."
"I suppose it’s something like that. You’ll understand the workings of it in no time. And I imagine your new home will be a busier household than even the Ivy Vine. Nearly as many abide there."
She recounted in her mind the names and pecking order of the brothers. Wesley, the oldest, who bore his father’s name, had moved up the James River with his wife, Sarah, and their three children. There they built a mill. Next came Robert, married to another Sarah, and their son, who lived south of the family. Milling was their occupation also. Next came Stephen and Melanie and a daughter, living in the city. John and Sylvia lived in the family home, as did Preston and his wife. Both women were expecting babies soon.
Preston watched her counting off on her fingers, her lips silently moving with the names. He had explained that even though the three eldest lived away, when they visited they stayed for days at a time. And the house could accommodate them all and would stretch for more. She finally shook her head in dismay at the size of this family.
"Father has always been accused of being overzealous in his undertakings. The size of his family bears that out."
"I’ll never remember the names when it comes time to meet them."
"Anxious?" he asked.
She nodded with a nervous smile. "I’m a little afraid."
"You needn’t be."
"Preston, what if—" She stopped and thought hard for a minute. And then very weakly she let her question out. "What if they don’t like me at all?"
"They are good people, Alicia. If you give them a chance to be your family, I think you will be glad you did." But still he saw her worried face looking past him, her thoughts serious and troubled. "You can tell them honestly about your past if you choose to."
"You gave me your word…"
"Aye, and I won’t break my promise. But if you change your mind, it will be all right."
"I won’t," she said with finality.
Preston leaned toward her and kissed her cheek. "Tell me what you want, Alicia, and I will provide it. Shall I bring the rogue to his knees? Shall I command the pirate from England to right the wrongs against you and make honorable his misuses—"
"Cease to speak of him, if you can," she interrupted quietly.
The cool seriousness in her eyes held him from any jesting. What abided behind those steeled, concealing eyes was a pain that she would not share and could not cast aside. "All right, darling," he said. "But I’ll warrant this bargain you’ve struck is far from over."
She turned back to the rail, looking over the new land. "You are wrong," she insisted. And Preston noticed that she gripped the rail so tightly that her knuckles became bone white and the veins in her delicate hands stood out.
He stood there behind her for a long time, looking with her at the shoreline. He realized she had just cause for her grief, and he thought she dealt with her misfortune with courage and daring.
But he knew something of Geoffrey as well. He knew that it was not the man’s way to deal dishonorably with women and that lies were impossible for him to bear gracefully. He surmised, once he knew the game, that Geoffrey had found himself in love with a tavern wench and had imagined himself face to face with a monster he’d never before challenged: true passion. Preston recognized it because he had struggled with that demon himself; and finally, after much confusion, had put the demon to rest by settling himself in marriage with the woman he loved.
Geoffrey, apparently, had not been able to wrestle his demon to submission in time. And his game had fled.
"If you ever find you’ve changed your mind and wish me to get in touch with Geoffrey, you have but to ask—"
"Never," she insisted, and again her pale, porcelainlike hands gripped the rail.
The Letty dropped anchor outside of Hampton, not venturing upriver in the dark. The shallowness of the water and the many sandbars made an adventure a bit too risky for Preston, especially with his precious cargo. Even though they were all ready to feel solid ground under their feet again, Preston insisted on another night on board.