On this side of the Atlantic, Selah and her father were to oversee disbursing other promised goods now shelved in the James Towne store. Petticoats, aprons, two pairs of shoes, six pairs of sheets, and white caps, or coifs, that married women wore as a mark of distinction.
But first, the brides themselves.
Rose-n-Vale was part two-storied frame timber house, part Flemish bond brick, an odd melding of the old and the new, the rustic and genteel, but it was his and it was home. Several miles upriver from James Towne, Xander’s “castle in the air,” as Rose-n-Vale was called, was a haven for no other reason than it was away from the petty politics and ongoing squabbles of Virginia’s largest settlement.
Surrounded by tobacco fields in various stages of cultivation, the sprawling, hard-won estate was a testament to how he spent his time. Beyond his far-flung borders his neighbor’s fields lay fallow. Xander still felt the lack of his fellow planter and friend felled by the violence of 1632. On the other side of him lay Hopewell Hundred, equally idle, but owned by Ustis Hopewell, the cape merchant, another trusted friend. ’Twas rumored some of it was Selah Hopewell’s dowry. But till she tamed her tongue and her temper, he doubted any man would claim it, or her.
Xander entered through the riverfront door and removed his hat. He sent it sailing toward a table near the stairwell, where it landed with a soft thud, nearly toppling the vase of flowers his housekeeping aunt had placed there. With a wince, he righted the skewed arrangement before entering his study, easily the most used room in the house.
“Alexander?” A feminine voice carried from a side door.
“Aunt, are you well?” She’d had a headache when he’d left for James Towne. The Virginia climate did not suit her Scottish sensibilities.
“Fully restored, Nephew.” She smiled, drying her hands on her apron. A touch of flour whitened her wrinkled cheek. “I’ve just finished the sennight’s bread baking. But I’m hungrier for news of the tobacco brides.”
Starved for feminine company, likely. He rounded his desk, eyeing the tardy ledgers and mounting correspondence. “The Seaflower was almost in when I left town.”
Her eyes rounded. “You did not stay to see all the maids land?”
“Nay.” Clearly this was a trespass of the highest order. “If I’d known you were interested, I would have delayed my leaving. I spoke first with Mistress Hopewell—”
“Selah?”
“Aye. She told me the women were to be put up in married households, and then the courting would commence.” He cast about for more details, the disappointment in his aunt’s expression making him dig deeper when he’d all but forgotten the matter. “There were a good many eager fellows on hand to greet these would-be brides.”
“But not you, sadly.”
“My mind is more on plantation matters.”
“Understandably, after so long a winter. Will we be dining alone again this evening?”
Again. The simple question sagged with dismay. Alone. Adrift. With no bridal prospects in sight. “Aye, but tomorrow we’re invited to the Hopewells’, in fact.” He turned toward the mantel, where his pipe collection rested, a far more attractive sight than desk work. “I had business with Ustis Hopewell at the last, and he extended the invitation. How about you accompany me? Rest from your labors.”
“Oh, a splendid plan! When shall we leave?”
He paused, picking up an English clay pipe with a pinwheel maker’s mark on the heel. “Half past five, mayhap? By shallop, not overland, if the river’s becalmed.”
“I’ll be ready. Perhaps a bowl of early strawberries would be welcome. Selah spoke of deer ravaging theirs last I saw her.”
“Strawberries, aye. I believe the Hopewells are to host a tobacco bride. You’ll be among the first to meet her, whoever she is.”
This had the intended effect. She clasped her hands together with childish delight. With that, she left him, returning to the kitchen to do whatever aging aunts did, leaving him to pinpoint exactly why he hadn’t stayed longer at the docks.
Because he was a widower of two years.
Nay, most men remarried within weeks.
Because the wind was cold.
Nay, the wind was the warmest he’d felt since last autumn.
Because he disliked James Towne.
True enough, aye. But more so because the one woman who unsettled him so oft of late had such mesmerizing eyes . . .
2
“Daughter, we are to have company, your father tells me. Can you pick some posies from the garden?” Candace Hopewell’s gaze swung from Selah to their housemaid. “Izella, set two more places at table, please.”
As Izella disappeared into the dining room, Selah turned toward her mother, pulled from her preoccupation with the tobacco brides. “Two, you say?”
“Master Renick and his aunt, Widow Brodie, likely. You know how fond she is of company. ’Tis been hard on her leaving Scotland for a more rusticated life here.”
“Why this unusual supper invitation?”
“Business.” Candace opened the bake oven and released the aroma of wheaten bread.
Business. What else could it be? Selah’s orderly train of thought took a tumble as she passed out a side door to do her mother’s bidding. Xander Renick’s preoccupation—obsession—with business trumped everything and made him guilty in her eyes of more than one mercenary charge. Yet her father favored him. And Xander oft sought her father’s counsel, an honor bestowed to precious few in fractious James Towne.
As always, the garden’s earthy scent cleared her kitchen-sated senses. Sadly, the soil was not fully awake and there would be no armful of summer’s best. Walking the crushed shell paths, she perused April’s timid offerings. Golden ragwort and fleabane and dwarf irises alongside an abundance of greenery. June’s bounty only beckoned.
Yet her mind was not on blooms but on the fine points of Master Renick’s company. Did this mean he had come out of mourning at long last? Selah picked several shooting stars fit for their table and buried her face in the mostly scentless blooms.
Perhaps he’d reconsidered taking a tobacco bride. Or her father had persuaded him. Lord knew Rose-n-Vale needed a mistress. Raising her gaze, Selah focused on the bedchamber window of Cecily Ward. Might Cecily suit? For all she knew, matrimony might be the matter her mother had mentioned.
An interesting assemblage graced their supper table. Ustis presided with his usual good humor and candor, thus talk was never dull. Even though he’d been a bit wan of late, slowly recovering from a severe winter’s cold, the malady hadn’t dimmed his spirits. And with so many hands in the kitchen, the table boasted early English peas and new potatoes, mounded into their best stoneware bowls. Shay, also in fine fettle, regaled them with tales of whale sightings and the Seaflower being pursued by a Spanish galleon till they’d outrun the enemy on a favorable wind.
If not for company, Selah would have stayed riveted, rooted to her place in their oak-paneled dining room amid the gentle flicker of candlelight. But tonight, with the click of utensils scraping pewter plates and the men’s tankards being refilled with ale, she and her mother and Izella wove in and out, finally serving dessert, a custard sweetened with West Indies cane sugar and crowned with candied lemon peel and the strawberries Xander’s aunt had brought. Such a delicacy raised Cecily’s russet brows.