“After much prayer, as you said.” He couldn’t keep the mockery from his tone. She had the grace to look down. “Have you spoken with Miss Lawson of late?”
“I have not. Word is she’s somewhere in Williamsburg. Just where, I do not know.”
Her dismissive tone set him more on edge than the contents of the letter. He glanced at the striking clock. Nearly the hour for tea, a custom he never observed, though many still did. “You’ll be wanting to be on your way.” He would not thank her. Gut instinct told him there was little truth to the charge, and his heart told him to dismiss it. His head urged a second look.
“I’m in no hurry. Let us speak of more pleasant matters.” She was all smiles now. “You were missed in the Apollo Room the other night. With so few Patriots, we ladies sadly lacked partners. Mister Washington, such an able dancer, was not in attendance either.”
“General Washington?” He wouldn’t say Washington had been in Massachusetts rallying troops, or that he himself had spent the evening revising the final draft of a document first penned by a fellow Patriot but considered too inflammatory. Bold, incendiary language that some members of the committee asked him to revisit. “I’ve not been in the dancing frame of mind of late.”
“Do you ever entertain here at Ty Mawr?”
“On occasion.” Was she wrangling an invitation?
She touched his sleeve, removing all doubt. “Should you ever need someone to act as hostess . . .”
He nearly chuckled at her audacity. Petticoat government. He had little need of that. She seemed to want to linger, so at odds with Libby’s stance. He was in no more mood for her company than he was afternoon tea. The letter sat squarely between them, full of rumor and ill will.
“Good day, Miss Shaw.”
When she went out he heard the tap of Mistress Tremayne’s heels approaching. “So much for Virginia hospitality, sir.” In her arms she bore a silver tray. He smelled strong coffee and bara brith fresh from the bake oven.
He pocketed Miss Shaw’s letter and took the tray from his housekeeper. In times past it was his sister he turned to for sensitive matters. Enid was older. Wiser.
Gone.
“Can you spare a few minutes?” he asked. “Partake of some hospitality with a flaming Patriot in need of feminine advice?”
Her answering smile made her seem a decade younger. “Of course, sir. My pleasure.”
They went out a door onto the riverfront portico. There he set the tray on a small table and seated her.
“I must confess being surprised at this turn of events,” she said. “’Tis not often masters sit down with servants.”
“Only in America, mayhap. ’Tis liberty and justice for all, aye?”
She chuckled and reached for the urn of coffee with her usual steadiness. Once she’d filled their cups, he took Miss Shaw’s letter from his pocket and passed it to her, knowing she’d never divulge the contents. She read it carefully, thoughtfully, expression unchanging.
“’Tis a heavy charge, that of spy,” she finally said, folding it up again. “A little early in the game for such accusations, wouldn’t you say?”
“Agreed.”
She gave a shrug. “Seems precious little to ferret out and spy about. We colonists are being taxed to death. The despised Dunmore has fled. Virginia simply wants to cobble together a little order in his absence till a new royal governor is appointed and the king makes amends. What’s so worthy of spying about that?”
“I’ll play devil’s advocate.” He fixed his gaze on the James River, its calm surface so at odds with his inner turmoil. “Lady Elisabeth’s connections give her instant access to important Tories. She has every reason to be angry with the Patriot cause. Her home has just been confiscated. She’s been forced into a trade. Few if any friends are standing by her. And now she’s being labeled a spy by a coward with no name.”
“You make a formidable case. I forget you were once a barrister before you were a burgess.” She looked at him inquiringly, her coffee untouched. “And now you are . . . ?”
“A delegate. Mayhap soon a soldier.”
She took a bite of Welsh bread, digesting the news. “War is coming, you mean. There’s no avoiding it.”
He nodded, tasting his coffee. For once he had no appetite for bara brith. Something Washington had said kept coming to mind, as if made for this very occasion.
True friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
He supposed the same could be said for him and Libby.
Liberty tucked Mama’s most recent letter in her commonplace book, which held practical things as well as more winsome ones. A worn sheet of music. Hastily penned poems. Pressed flowers. Prayers. Lace orders and merchants’ names. She’d purchased the scrapbook from the Norfolk bookbinder along with more ink from her first weeks’ wages.
Mister Southall had kindly given her an old desk, which left her remembering her former Queen Anne tucked beneath her bedchamber window at the townhouse. Though nicked and of inferior wood, the folly’s desktop was firm and smooth, and there was a shallow drawer with enough room for her commonplace book. A single candlestick graced a pewter holder, one of the Raleigh’s castoffs.
Oddly, she took pleasure in these hard-won things in a way she hadn’t the silver candelabra and leather-bound books of her former life. She had little now, but it was enough. Thalia brought her an extra serving of soup or bit of crusty bread from the Raleigh kitchen, and in turn she looked after Thalia’s wound.
Tonight a moth hovered near the candle flame as Liberty wrote down her orders in its pale light. Norfolk had been needy while Williamsburg stood aloof. She blew on the ink, for she lacked pounce, and left the book open to dry. Taking out Mama’s letter again she reread it slowly, dwelling on one aggravating line.
After much discussion with my hosts, we feel you must come immediately to Philadelphia. Virginia is naught but a powder keg.
Liberty folded up the letter and again hid it in her commonplace book, which she placed in the desk drawer. It was then she heard his voice. How many days since she’d seen him?
Thalia had told her there was to be a meeting of the Independence Men in one of the Raleigh’s private rooms. Liberty looked out the folly door with an anticipation that was hard to hide. Noble had finally come. He dismounted from his stallion in the alley, exchanging a few words with Billy before slipping inside the ordinary.
He’d not looked her way once.
Hurt bloomed beneath her tightly laced bodice. Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled off her lace cap, plucked the pins from her hair, and finger-combed the untidy tresses into a top knot at the crown of her head, then pinned her cap back into place. Having settled the matter of Isabeau’s indenture, would he now shun her as so many in Williamsburg did?
Pent up, she played the serinette, its airy notes jarring sourly with the lively fiddling in the taproom. Finally slipping out the door, she stepped into the humid twilight and took a turn about the garden, fan aflutter to keep insects away. A few paces took her to the back gate.
Why was she always drawn to Palace Green? Their townhouse had been so close while the Raleigh was a good quarter-hour walk to the Governor’s Palace. If she cut across the back onto Nicholson Street her way would be shorter . . .
As always, Williamsburg was bustling even at night. A great many Patriots lived within its boundaries, occupying a cross-section of a few streets. Though empty, the town’s crown jewel was still the Governor’s Palace and had ever been.
As a child she’d been bewitched by the Palace’s bricked gate guarded by a stone lion and unicorn. It hadn’t helped that her father said if she was not good she would be the lion’s supper. Now she stood outside those gates in the moonlit, mosquito-laden dusk, missing the lanthorn that shone like a star from the balustrade roof high above.
Oh, for another levee! A ball! If only she’d enjoyed her last evening here, not been pent up with worries abou
t tardy fiancés and rebel escorts. If only time wound backward as well as forward . . .
She looked southeast. A full moon was rising, suspended like a gold locket in a darkening sky, casting the empty gardens and outbuildings in ghostly, almost ghastly light.
She wanted to pretend the governor and Lady Charlotte had just gone to Porto Bello, their plantation outside Williamsburg. But even then the Palace had never gone dark. It cut to the deepest part of her. Turning her back on it, she fled down Palace Green to the folly.
The next morning found her cradling her teacup outside the Raleigh kitchen, only there was no tea, not even liberty tea, just coffee. Thalia poured the black brew to the brim, a bit spilling into the saucer.
“That’s a mighty fancy cup,” Thalia whispered, as if Liberty might have snitched it.
“’Twas my mother’s,” Liberty answered. The puce and cobalt porcelain was Doccia, Mama’s favorite, painted with a bucolic scene of a country estate looking disturbingly like Ty Mawr. Blessed she was to have saved even one teacup.
Thalia slipped her not one hot roll but two. The large kitchen had long been astir, half a dozen aproned servants at work well before daylight. Liberty smiled her thanks at Thalia’s apron-clad mother at the heart of the kitchen.
“Them Independence Men never went to sleep.” Casting a glance at the ordinary, Thalia murmured, “Up all night, the lot o’ them, and callin’ for plenty o’ strong coffee this morn.”
Liberty darted a glance at the ordinary. Was Noble still there? She’d lain awake wondering. “I’d best get to work.”
Going to the well, she washed her cup and saucer before returning to the folly to set the prized porcelain on the fireplace mantel. Taking her usual position in the doorway, the rising sun her light, she chose her best needle. This morn she was pricking out a pattern, a strip of parchment encircling her lace pillow. If she’d not happened upon a bundle of pins in Norfolk, an answered prayer, she’d have resorted to using fish bones as some did.
She was trying to create a unique design of tiny flowers, leaves, and fans to gather into ruffles for ladies’ lace sleeves, as well as adorn a special order for a christening gown. Her linen thread was ready, some new bobbins too. But would she be able to do the work and the Raleigh’s mending?
Down a pathway came a laundress, a large basket on one hip. She left it just outside the folly doorway, and Liberty saw an abundance of shirts and a petticoat. All freshly laundered but in need of a button at the cuff or a resewn seam.
She set her lace pillow aside and readied a simple sewing needle and thread. The rising sun puddled in the doorway, making the details on the first shirt plain. ’Twas a gentleman’s shirt, the twist of fabric very fine, needing only a restitched button at the collar. The discreet monogram at the hem was worked in indigo thread, a pleasing pairing with the snowy linen.
NR.
Noble’s own? Her very bones seemed to melt. Lowering her head, she lifted the soft shirt to her face, shutting her eyes and breathing in the welcome scent. It smelled of summer and lye and wind and . . . him.
“Libby.”
Her eyes flew open.
Noble’s voice rose in question. “Enjoying your work?”
Drenched with embarrassment, she balled up the garment in her hands. Did he know she held his shirt? Surely he did. For all her hasty fumbling his monogram was still visible.
She raised her reluctant gaze to his. His all-night meeting was telling. Shadows lurked, turning his eyes more black than brown but for the strain of red. They warmed with a telltale amusement nevertheless.
“How goes it?” He leaned into the door frame. “Your lace work? The trip to Norfolk?”
Returning his shirt to the basket, she feigned nonchalance. “Well and good. And you? Ty Mawr?”
“The same.”
Impatience flared. She wanted to skip past the pleasantries. She craved conversation. Depth. Standing up, she smoothed the wrinkles from her apron. “You’ve not come for small talk, have you? You’re too busy for that.”
His curt nod was confirmation. He extracted a letter from inside his coat, and his shifting expression told her it was not glad news. Reluctantly, she took the paper, noting the broken seal. The handwriting was vaguely familiar and tugged on some past part of her. She read it once. Twice. The accusatory tone turned her stomach.
She looked him steadfastly in the eye, but her voice shook. “I am not a spy.” Had he shared this letter in his all-night meeting? She cringed at the thought. “Who knows of this?”
“Just you, me, Mistress Tremayne, the coward who penned it, and the letter bearer, Miss Shaw.”
Cressida? Her stomach flipped. “She came to you with this? To Ty Mawr?”
“Aye. Yesterday.”
Her eyes smarted. Was Cressida not her friend? Granted, she’d not seen any of the Shaws since she’d left the townhouse and had stopped going to church.
Noble was regarding her so intently she felt the need to defend herself. “My recent trip to Norfolk garnered orders for lace and naught else. I saw my father in Yorktown a month ago, and he all but threw me off the Fowey.” Even now the hurt lingered. Swallowing, she forced mettle into her voice. “I am too busy to act as spy. Besides, I—”
“I didn’t say I believed the letter, Libby.”
His calm, his calling her Libby, took some of the sting away. “Then why did you bring it to me?”
“To warn you that there are people, supposed friends, who spread untruths about you. If you’re thought a spy, bodily harm might come to you. Be on your guard. Go nowhere alone if you can help it.”
“But I am alone—” She broke off, the weight of that lonesomeness widening. During her busy days she could bear it. ’Twas the long nights that bestirred her deepest worries.
All around them, the Raleigh was springing to life, people coming and going, the bake shop and apothecary now open. Thalia was at work in the garden, battling squash bugs that bedeviled her prized pumpkins. The laundresses were hanging linens. ’Twas a normal day in Williamsburg, yet Liberty sensed an undercurrent of tension, of something tearing at the very fabric of their ordinary lives. Hers had already been upended. Theirs would be too. She felt it and feared it, but what was she to do?
Her focus narrowed to Noble’s sturdy silhouette, the rising sun behind him. She craved his sound-mindedness, his strength. She wanted to thank him for not suspecting the worst of her despite the tainting letter. But the words hung in her throat.
“I want to protect you, but I do not know how.” He passed a hand over bloodshot eyes. “I am not your husband nor your suitor, simply a concerned friend.”
She sensed all he could not say. She had been warned. Any harm that came to her was beyond his control. To be safe she could join her mother in Philadelphia or—and this next seemed patently unsafe—join her father aboard ship with the possibility of returning to England.
As much to bolster her spirits as to honor him, she said, “How can I bow to fear when you Patriots risk all you hold dear?”
“I am a man with resources. You are a woman who has lost nearly everything except her ingenuity and pride.”
“Pride? Is it wrong to want to make a way for myself? To remain in the place I was born and reared?”
“Nay, but you must not allow those things to override your reason. Your safety. Billy told me you went out in the dark last night down Palace Green.”
Billy? “Just who is spying on whom, I wonder?” She flushed. “Betimes these folly walls . . .” She left off. She wouldn’t bemoan her lot, or that the folly seemed hopelessly small, all her working hours confined to pins and thread. “The evening was so lovely I wanted to walk about. I needed to see the Palace.” Would he understand this? The pull of the past, the yearning to return to a more settled time? She gave the letter back to him. “Have you any guess as to who wrote this about me?”
“Nay. Miss Shaw was not forthcoming. The writing hand is neither Miles Roth nor Doctor Hessel. That’s all I know.
” He returned his hat to his head. “I’m off to Ty Mawr for a meal. And sleep.” With a smile he added, “Ffarwel.”
“Ffarwel,” she called after him, sorry to see him go. For all she knew he was her one true friend in all of Williamsburg.
21
The next day fever struck the Raleigh. Thalia and some of the kitchen staff were first to succumb, and Mister Southall begged Liberty’s help in the burgeoning garden. Her mending was gladly set aside for the more pressing matter of feeding diners and lodgers. New potatoes needed digging and green beans picked and the like. Salat also needed making, so Liberty filled two baskets with parsley, chervil, lettuce, and scallions.
But for young Billy, she’d have been rather helpless. Checking a grin, he assisted her between leading and fetching mounts for Raleigh patrons.
“Yer not a hand in the kitchen, miss?” he questioned. “Ye’ve not dug potatoes or picked greens before?”
“I have not,” she confessed. “My education has been sorely lacking. But for you, Mister Southall might well turn me out.”
He laughed at this, working all the harder alongside her. As they harvested what was needed in the hot sun, another sort of fever burned inside her, the fire kindled by accusation. Her fingers pinched at a stubborn weed, pulling it free of the soil like she wished she could do with the allegation. Who had written that lie of a letter? Why had Cressida been the one to carry it? What was the reason it ended up with Noble Rynallt?
Spy?
If they were trying to turn Noble against her, they had failed. Or so she hoped. Would he one day believe it to be true? God forbid. For now, she wanted to repay him for his faith in her. Help him and his cause.
The next forenoon she tended Thalia’s herb garden, a more pleasant pastime than the kitchen’s vegetable garden. Sweet goldenrod stood tall and queen-like, shading sweet fern and spicebush and wild bergamot. Along with the leaves of the common raspberry, these were concocted into a pleasing blend of faux bohea. Her mother had wanted to plant their own liberty garden at the back of the townhouse, but her father forbade it.