Apron donned, Seona dipped her hands in a washbowl while Naomi plunged sturdy fingers into her curls and set to braiding.
His hair had changed, gone a rich, dark gold with only streaks left of the spun-flax shade it used to be. From across the worktable her mama was eyeing her. She hoped Lily couldn’t see how her mind was stuck on the sight of Mister Ian grown up tall and wide-shouldered, with his hair tamed down so the only part left curling was the tail. His smile was like she minded, wide above that chin with its tiny dip in the center, like an angel brushed it with a wingtip before his bones had set. Otherwise the rounded face in her drawing had vanished, swallowed up by the lean flesh and strong bones of a man’s face.
A final yank to her scalp stung her eyes, but she was too distracted to protest. “Did y’all see him?”
“Had us a glimpse when he come up to the house.” Naomi retied her apron strings, then pushed Seona toward the dishes bound for the warming room. “Looking like a wildcat out the woods.”
“He’s grown into those gangly limbs,” Lily added.
“He has,” Seona agreed as Esther rushed in, sweating and bothered.
“What’s holding you up, Seona?”
“My knees, I reckon.” Seona wrapped a towel around a steaming crock, plunked a kiss atop Esther’s cap, and hurried out.
On the last trip from the house Seona saw the other new arrival sitting on a bench in the breezeway down at the kitchen end, half-hid by trellis canes heavy with cream-pink roses. She took her time coming along, wanting to get herself a proper view of this new man come with Mister Ian, who obliged by leaning out from behind the roses to get a look at her.
Striped stockings—fine ones that didn’t bag—pewter-buckled shoes, and a coat colored like a newborn fawn, fit like it was made for him. He was dandied up more than any serving man she’d seen save the coach drivers at Chesterfield. His skin was middling dark, jaw bony, ears small and set close to a skull nicely shaped. His eyebrows weren’t more than a sprinkle of hairs, but his smile was lively and his teeth white and she could tell he thought himself a pleasing sight to behold. He wasn’t wrong.
Standing at her approach, still smiling, he said, “Not that I don’t find the present view filling in its way, but how’s a hungry man meant to get himself a sampling of those vittles I been smelling?”
Seona halted with a hand to her hip. “That man can sit himself back on that bench and wait for what’s coming to him. Supper back of the house today is pone and pot likker. Reckon your master feeds you better?”
She was used to puzzlement in the eyes of enslaved or free when they got their first look at her, like what came into Mister Ian’s eyes when he realized who she wasn’t. This one’s eyes were different. They sparkled, as if he knew some private jest—concerning her.
“No, ma’am. I’m accustomed to johnnycake—if that’s what you mean by pone.”
She relaxed in the face of his good humor. Judging by his accent, he was a long way from home, wherever that had been. Maybe he’d left a wife or little ones behind. Likely he’d be anxious to find his way into their circle, feel it close round him. If he reckoned his master was come to stay.
“Well then, what are you called?”
“You can call me Thomas. And what do I call you, missy ma’am?”
“Save ma’am for your master’s kin. I’m plain Seona.”
“I take issue with you being plain anything.” He broadened his smile, making her revise her speculations about a wife. “But what sort of name is Sho-nuh? You got a back name to go with that?”
A back name? Of all the cheek. He hadn’t known what to make of her after all, fishing about with his missy and ma’am. This man of Mister Ian’s had to be uppity as the day was long. Or none too bright. “It’s the name my mama gave me, and no, I don’t. Now sit like I told you. By and by I’ll bring you out a plate.”
He sat quick, like she might scold worse if he didn’t. “Yes, ma’am—I mean, Seona.”
As she swung away, he grabbed the end of her braid. Seona tugged it free but, as she ducked into the kitchen, felt her wayward hair unraveling again.
“Cousin, you’ve barely eaten enough to satisfy a bird. We thought you’d be ravenous for a decent meal after your journey. Didn’t we, Judith?”
Rosalyn Bell didn’t glance aside at her younger sister as she spoke. Neither did Ian. He was too busy noting the candle flames mirrored in eyes the exact blue of the cornflowers bedecking the table’s chinaware. The elder Miss Bell, who’d captured his attention the moment she glided into the dining room, was the antithesis of the girl he’d collided with abovestairs. Golden-haired and softly rounded, she wore a rose-hued gown cut to reveal an eye-catching expanse of bosom, swelling above a waist nipped in so tight his hands might have spanned it.
“Might we tempt you with an apple fritter? Papa Hugh said you couldn’t eat your fill when you visited years ago.”
“I’m sure I did my best.” Sharing the collective chuckle at his expense, Ian accepted the pastry and took a bite. Rosalyn watched approvingly, a dimple flashing in her cheek. Ian chewed, all but drowning in the blue of her gaze.
“Aye, Judith. Your cousin did arrive bedecked with an Indian tomahawk. Perhaps he’ll tell ye how he came by it.”
Catching the end of his uncle’s prompting remark, Ian realized the other sister had addressed him. Rather plain, just shy of eighteen, Judith Bell might have passed for a girl much younger. She’d taken pains to coil her finer, light-brown hair like her sister’s shining curls, but the damp heat permeating the house had wilted them into straggles on her narrow shoulders.
Ian swallowed his mouthful and smiled at her. “I’ve brought along a few mementos of my years among the Chippewa. Fancy a keek at them after supper, would ye?”
Judith bobbed her head, blushing and beaming. Like her sister, the lass had pretty teeth. She was less plain when she smiled.
“With such unrest among the northern tribes,” Uncle Hugh said, snagging Ian’s attention, “were ye no’ of some trepidation venturing among them?”
Ian cleared his throat. They were dangerously close to what he’d meant to share with the man earlier. Privately. The great scandal of their family that had sent him, barely eighteen at the time, to the wilds of Upper Canada with his mother’s younger brother, Callum Lindsey. It was Callum, five years later, who’d carted Ian back to Boston, in danger of losing his leg to wound fever. Ian was hazy now on the timing of those events back in spring, but he minded Callum at his bedside telling him of a second chance to settle in Carolina, to put disgrace behind him.
A grip on his arm, a muttered prayer, and he’d seen no more of the kinsman who for five years had been his refuge. Callum had left him behind. So he’d taken Hugh Cameron up on his offer. Another uncle. Another refuge. Far from a disappointed father.
“I wouldn’t have gone alone, sir,” Ian told that uncle now. “I had Mam’s brother watching out for me. But aye, there’s unrest enough in the region with the British refusing to relinquish their forts and so many settlers pushing west. It can be a challenge to run a trapline unmolested. No telling how long that life can last, but I don’t regret having lived it for a bit.”