Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2)

by Meredith, Anne

  Camisha hesitated. “All right, I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you. It’s a not-so-secret code for your sister’s name. Eighteen equals R. One equals A. And so on. I’m leaving her a letter that in another 240 years from now, with another small miracle and a large favor from God, she might receive. And a letter for my mother.”

  “But how—”

  “She’ll be visiting this house someday, believe me. It’s one of the homes that survives untouched into the twenty-first century—because it’s a Trelawney home. And Malcolm has promised to leave it here for me—for her—attached to an artifact that was meaningful to me and her.”

  “What kind of artifact?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Do we have time for me to write her?”

  Camisha gave her a somber look. “You cannot. You grew up with your crazy grandmother, and Malcolm doesn’t trust you yet—he’s still nervous about what you might do or say.”

  Marley’s lip trembled. She was stung at the thought. “No one’s ever respected or safeguarded history more than I,” she said, appalled to hear her throat choke with tears. “I would only tell her that I love her and hope to see her again someday. It’s not as if I’m freaking Mary Smith Cranch.”

  “Who?”

  “Ha. I thought you were the big History PhD.”

  “No, baby, I’m a lawyer.”

  “She was Abigail Adams’s sister,” she said, dissolving again in tears.

  Camisha laughed and pulled her into her arms. “Oh, honey, look at the mess you are.” Grabbing her upper arms, she pushed her away from her. “Oh, good gravy. Are your nipples sensitive?”

  Marley wiped her nose, blushing. “Isn’t that kind of personal?”

  “No, you knucklehead. I think you might be pregnant. Boy, you Miller girls are just kind of clueless about men sometimes. Have you had a period recently?”

  “No,” Marley said, wonderstruck. “I haven’t. Not since before we left for Bermuda. Do you think?” she asked with a giggle.

  “Now what do you think? I know that husband of yours and how he looks at you—hell, how he acts even with people around you two. ‘Hm, my dear bride, let us retire to my cabin that I might discuss with you an important matter.’ I’m sure that boy’s been doing you twice a day since you were married.”

  “Camisha!” Marley laughed.

  “Well? Am I lying?”

  “No,” she said sullenly. “Probably more often, though.”

  She sighed. “Help me find a dust cap. That might not be easy. Maybe Thomas still has some of Jennie’s stuff upstairs.”

  “What do you need a dust cap for?”

  “And an apron. Much as I love this old town, I just can’t see them letting an uppity black woman wander around in the Raleigh Tavern without a proper servant’s uniform.”

  “Why the Raleigh Tavern?”

  “Will you stop asking me questions and find me an apron? Go look in the kitchen. No doubt he has servants.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “Well, the fifth Virginia convention is about to convene at the capitol, and even though I’m not sure where Thomas Jefferson is—he’s due in Philadelphia in just a couple of weeks—I know for a fact Bronson Trelawney is in town tonight.”

  “Camisha?” Marley asked, growing tired of the mystery of her prescience.

  “So I think there’s a good chance Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry will be as well—and they’re likely as not to meet up at the Raleigh Tavern’s Apollo Room.”

  “Seriously?” Every nerve ending in her skin prickled with excitement.

  “As a heart attack.” Camisha pushed the swinging door into the kitchen and emerged perhaps half a minute later with the wardrobe items she’d sought. “Got one for you, too. Put it on, just to be safe.”

  Marley hastily shoved the cap on her head, pushing her hair out of the way, and tied the apron around her waist. “Do you think Malcolm would mind if we met them?”

  She laughed. “Girl, like I told you. Thirty years ago I lived within maybe five miles of William Byrd—for months—and never once got to meet that man. Even though he’d have just told me to empty his chamber pots, I’d have made him talk to me about law. Hell, your sister got to party with him every night, and she didn’t know him from Adam. Did I ever tell you that my son, Eston, is named after one of Sally Hemings’ children? Or that she’s my ancestor? Honey, after all these months, we’ve still got a lot to talk about. And yes, I am going to meet my melancholy great granddaddy Tom.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Camisha led Marley through the busy town—filled with people laughing, on their way home to dinner, or out to meet old chums and bump the gums over a pint. Presently they reached the Raleigh Tavern, and they hurried onto the porch, under the lead bust of Sir Walter Raleigh, and inside.

  The older woman looked around; no matter how old she grew, she would never have her fill of this place in this time—so much a part of her, she felt its aches and pains in the morning. It gave her a prescient nostalgia to know the old girl was entering her last days—that in only another four years, Williamsburg would begin her decline and the cup of liberty would pass on to her children.

  The spring night was beginning to cool, but the place was packed with men there for the convention, and those men were eating, drinking, and laughing boisterously. Fires blazed in the fireplaces, almost unnecessarily. Even with the door frequently opening for those bustling in and out, the tavern was quite warm.

  They passed into the Apollo Room, and she glanced at the corner where she and Rachel had taken the selfie with the Jefferson painting behind them. Of course, now the painting didn’t yet exist. After tonight, it would.

  As delighted as she always was to see her son and Bronson, she remembered that day so long ago now—truly, that had yet to occur—and her heart swelled with that age-old ache. Not a day passed that she didn’t mourn Rachel.

  Just inside the room, they passed an artist with sketch sheets. Even as she noticed the man finish a charcoal sketch of a couple in the corner, Malcolm Henderson approached the artist. “Mind if I have a go at it?” he asked. “I’m working on my figures, and it isn’t often I get to see so many.”

  “I was just finishing up.” The gentleman collected his materials and bowed to Malcolm before departing.

  Malcolm ignored Camisha and Marley, and she noticed Marley’s confusion. Quickly, she shook her head.

  Boisterous laughter rang from the table in the corner, and she stared at the back of Thomas Jefferson’s head, growing tongue-tied. She and Marley stood there, quite like a couple of groupies at an after party.

  Bronson glanced at them, then did a double-take, a confused smile crossing his face. “Marley?”

  She ducked her head, still unable to speak. Camisha couldn’t judge; she couldn’t open her mouth, and that was saying something.

  All the men at the table rose, and the two nearest her turned, towering in historic stature over both of the tall, mute women.

  “Tom, Pat, the lovely woman hiding behind Marley is Mrs. Camisha Adams, Rashall’s mother. And this shy young woman is my own wife, Merrilea.”

  Both women curtsied, both men bowed.

  “Don’t tell me this young lady is the one who made mincemeat of those at Great Bridge?” Jefferson asked. “I’d heard that your new bride was quite an expert with a rifle.”

  “Much as I would love to be a legend,” she put in before her husband could brag otherwise, “’Twasn’t me, sir. He knew I was terrified to be left behind and so he allowed me to come to the camp, but the victory belonged to the Continental Army.”

  He tilted his head, conceding in a manner that indicated he believed nothing she said. “I see.”

  “’Twould break my heart, seeing credit not go to the proper historic characters.”

  Bronson watched her, a small smile quirking his mouth as she continued her colonial folderol.

  “P
lease join us,” Henry said. He glanced around and found two chairs against the wall, drawing them to the table.

  “Here, you sit over there, beside the other men,” Camisha said. “I believe the man there is planning a painting of you.”

  They followed her directions and as all four men smiled at Malcolm, who was busy sketching lightly, he gave them a gracious nod.

  “Where’s Mr. Adams? We sent him after you two.”

  “We didn’t see him. We just came on our own.”

  “Ah. Well, he’s only been gone a few moments—I’m sure he’ll arrive shortly. We were just discussing the Second Continental Congress,” Bronson said, glancing meaningfully from Marley to Camisha.

  At this, she sat in delight next to Jefferson, and Marley joined her at an angle so as not to block Malcolm’s view.

  He nodded to Bronson. “Yes, but do you recall the first Virginia convention? Old Dunmore thought to dissolve the House of Burgesses, so we adjourned to meet here.”

  “That should have been our first sign that the romance was over.” This from Rashall.

  “More so that we should have known our father is a brute who abuses his children. Now if you want a tragic romance, that would be my pining over my Belinda.”

  Bronson gave an impolite laugh. “Oh, Tom, I don’t mean to be—well, mean, but you truly were besotted.”

  The soulful dreamer and architect of the nation stared into his wine glass. “That I was. In this very room, dancing the night away while she set her heart on a less studious sort. Poor wretch, and she married another only a few months later.”

  “I warned you to study more French and less Latin. And then this gentleman, on fire like an Attic orator at St. John’s, with his ‘liberty or death’ alternatives. It’s a wonder any fun at all was had, with the ongoing quest for liberty.”

  Jefferson spared Bronson a smile. “But we did have fun, didn’t we? Do you recall that visiting professor we had—you were but a lad, your father had you stuffed so full of learning you were but—what, eight or nine?”

  “I was thirteen. And his name was Miller,” he said, glancing at Marley. “Robert Miller.”

  “The man’s love for the colonies was like the cleric George Whitefield’s for salvation—he spoke of the unborn country as if he were a prognosticator of philosophy and rhetoric.”

  “Perhaps he was. He’s been right so far. But look who we have here—your tutor in the Enlightenment, Mr. Wythe.”

  The man who appeared across from Jefferson was not as tall as the others, but in stature considered a giant. He was older, with more wrinkles and less hair, than when Camisha had known him. He looked around the group, his gaze resting on her. “I beg your pardon, but we know one another, do we not?”

  She stood and curtsied deeply. “What a mind you have, sir. Yes, thirty years ago you let me help you defend Grey Trelawney when he was on trial for his wife’s murder.”

  “Ah, yes! I recall as if it were yesterday. I don’t know that I had ever met anyone so naturally gifted for defending those who were innocent yet for whom circumstance made innocence seem highly improbable.”

  “Mr. Wythe, it’s such a pleasure to see you again. The trial of Grey Trelawney was truly one of my crowning achievements in life—and here is another, my son Rashall Adams.”

  Rashall rose to shake his hand. “Will you join us, sir?”

  “I am afraid I cannot. I have one more matter to attend to this evening before we convene in the morning, and I spied you all here and contrived to say hello. Tom, are we still riding together to Philadelphia?”

  “With pleasure, sir, and at your leisure.”

  And with that, Wythe bowed to the table and left the tavern.

  “I don’t mind saying, I would have enjoyed seeing that trial,” Jefferson said. “What an intriguing sight it must have been, a comely young African woman debating the likes of Peyton Randolph.”

  His words surprised her, although they shouldn’t have. He might instead have marveled at watching a mule do a minuet. Everything she had ever read as a young woman told her that Jefferson was indeed a racist, believing blacks to be as helpless as children.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I was never an African. I and my ancestors are American—as American as … well, sir, as American as you and your own children.”

  She noticed Marley’s suppressed smile at her words, but she knew Jefferson could never guess what she had just said.

  Oh, but he had—at least as much as a man who had no idea that his seed would someday result in the comely young woman sitting before him. “I humbly beg your forgiveness, Mrs. Adams. I meant only to compliment you. Truly any lover of law and justice would have loved to watch such a match.”

  Because Camisha did indeed love this man, the historic document he would finish penning in the next two months, and the country whose birth it would effect, she lay her hand on his ruffled wrist. “Sir, I do have one question of you.”

  He gave a simple nod.

  She selected her words thoughtfully. “If—as is quite likely—the subject of slavery arises in Philadelphia, how will you respond?”

  “Freedom is not a political right or a national right. Freedom is the basic right of all mankind. And for that I will fight.”

  “Sir,” she pressed on, “we are adults here. We know the importance of enslaved men and women to the southern economy.”

  Bronson added, “Let us be honest—not simply to the south, or to this land, but to the entire world. The north relies on the work of the southern slave as much as the southern planter does. We are hypocrites if we claim otherwise.”

  She nodded. “True. Then, Mr. Jefferson, you can expect that your countrymen will resist any effort you make to insist on the inclusion of enslaved Americans in any petition for freedom. What say you then?”

  “I shall stand on the rock of the principles that must form the new country.”

  “I see. What do you do if they flatly refuse to support any provision for the freedom of slaves?”

  At last, perhaps, she’d gotten her question across to him. He raised his eyebrows briefly and gave an exasperated laugh. “Another prognosticator, I see. Well, the fact is, I do believe in the prudence of your question. And I have an alternative plan. First, we abolish the trade itself. Second, we ameliorate conditions for those who currently are enslaved. Third, we establish an end date, after which any slave born is automatically free.”

  “And after the slaves are freed—what then?”

  “They should be returned to the place of their ancestry.”

  Camisha gazed at him expressionlessly. “Sir, many of these people and their ancestors have lived here longer than some whites. They speak English. They know nothing of life in Africa, or the West Indies. Why not integrate them into American society through education?”

  “We have seen the result of slave uprisings, where the loosed negro is—”

  “Mr. Jefferson, you speak of my people as if we are animals. We are not. Race is no more a fact of science than unicorns. It was a lie created by those who would control and subjugate others.”

  He smiled and nodded at Bronson. “Now this is the woman who debated Mr. Randolph, God rest his soul.”

  Camisha closed her mouth, conceding an argument she had not expected to win. Indeed, as she gave up the fight, she happened to catch Malcolm’s gaze—and found him frowning at her, deeply disturbed.

  Her argument with Jefferson had been the most verboten act she had undertaken in thirty years. Never once had Malcolm been obliged to correct her; she simply knew better. Meeting Thomas Jefferson two months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence had offered too great a temptation. She told herself she only wanted to know why.

  “In any case, in whatever circumstances, it is imperative that slavery be ended—that our children’s children may not suffer God’s wrath.”

  “Speaking of children,” Camisha said, glancing at Bronson as she abruptly changed the subject, “I believe your y
oung bride has news for you.”

  His eyes darkened in pleasure and expectation.

  “I’m not positive,” Marley said, raising her gaze to his. “But I do think I might be—um, with child.”

  The corner table rang with delight and good cheer, and he leaned over to kiss his wife’s cheek, then brought her hand to his lips in a sudden, fiercely happy gesture. Rashall proposed a toast, and Camisha rose and looked on as her son gave the toast.

  And it was this moment of joy and celebration that Malcolm captured on his canvas for posterity, of the men around the table. The painting that had captured a festive Jefferson so unlike the studious philosopher history recorded had simply been rejoicing in a friend’s celebration of his first child.

  The celebration went on into the night, with Marley sipping tea as the men drank ale. Ashanti rejoined them there, and they passed the night before the Fifth Virginia Convention in pleasant diversion.

  And so it was the exciting bustle of the Raleigh Tavern—as it teemed with men there from all over the colony for the convention—that a man appeared, just as Camisha had released her earlier, pointless frustration and decided to enjoy herself. She was having the kind of fun she hadn’t had for—well, perhaps ever. At least, since the last time she’d made merry with a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

  And then she noticed a tavern wench pointing toward them. She spoke to a dark-haired, clean-shaven man she didn’t recognize until it was too late. He appeared there as if straight from her nightmares, as he’d looked thirty years before, disguised to all except the woman who had been at the root of his humiliation in Williamsburg.

  James Manning swept into the Apollo Room as if on demonic power, appearing only a blink after she saw him, straightening his arm toward their table. She did not know his target. Even as she dove toward Rashall, and Ashanti toward Rashall, Rashall toward Bronson (or perhaps her, as she would later assume—although she didn’t have a curse hanging over her head), Bronson toward his wife—everyone shoving loved ones out of the way—Manning raised his arm and fired a pistol.

  Jefferson bent over to retrieve a dropped napkin in an astonishingly random act of tidiness that saved his life, and the blast went through the window and straightaway toward the King’s Arms Tavern across the street, where Jane Vobe would the next day be obliged to replace a shutter shattered by the blast.