The Mistress of Tall Acre

by Laura Frantz

  Returning upstairs to her room she took pains dressing in case the storm cleared, resurrecting an old garment from her stale wardrobe. Sewn by Williamsburg’s foremost dressmaker for her twentieth birthday, the fabric was the finest silk damask, the exquisite embroidery a palette of blues worked with silver thread. Though lovely, the gown hung on her in places, namely her bodice and waist, where the lean years had whittled her away.

  She would always remember the date she was to wear it. April 19, 1775. The day the bloodshed began—the day her social season ended. She was sheltered, ignorant of the changing political landscape, so it took months for her to grasp why her father was an unpopular man in Virginia. Like Governor Dunmore and other Tories in power, he’d fled to Britain at the start of the war, though her mother stayed steadfast, refusing to leave her children and home.

  Oh Mama, I miss your steady spirit.

  Evelyn Baird Menzies, she’d come to realize, was a stronger soul than her nearsighted father. His political ambitions and marital neglect had taken a toll on them all but especially her mother, whom he’d abandoned and cut off despite resuming a luxurious lifestyle in Edinburgh.

  Father, I’m glad you’re gone.

  Slipping off her scuffed everyday shoes, she sank her feet into silken slippers dyed the hue of her gown, tiny ivory rosettes at the toe. Silk stockings and garters, manifold petticoats, and a blue velvet hair ribbon completed her wardrobe.

  For once she was glad of her tousled head. There was never a need for curling tongs, nor a maid. She simply swept up her hair with paste and garnet pins, leaving a few wisps spiraling down, the ribbon carelessly woven in.

  Even now she recalled the barely veiled surprise in the general’s eyes when he first saw her. As if he didn’t believe it was she. Where was the plump, pampered girl he remembered? Sophie felt suddenly shabby despite her best dress, naught but a scarecrow in faded fabric and lace. Shutting her eyes, she cut off the thought with saber-like swiftness, glad when Glynnis called from the foyer below.

  “They’re here.”

  Truly? Despite the storm? Taking a last look in the mirror, Sophie pinched her wan cheeks, wishing for a little powder, though it would take a wheelbarrow full to coat her dark hair. Powder, some said, was decidedly British and going out of fashion.

  When she reached the foyer, Glynnis was nowhere in sight. Unembarrassed by the lack of servants, Sophie opened the wide front door herself as Lily Cate got down from the Ogilvy coach and her father helped her leap over a muddy puddle.

  Out of uniform today, Seamus Ogilvy was dressed like a laird, a country gentleman. The master of Tall Acre. The damp had curled the ends of his hair, adding a fine sheen to his rich broadcloth coat. His eyes sought hers as he cleared the bottom step—a thoughtful, soul-searching blue that nearly sent her spinning. Lily Cate clutched her doll, smiling shyly in expectation.

  “Welcome to Three Chimneys,” Sophie said as they swept inside.

  Rain-speckled, Lily Cate looked up at her father, who seemed to be waiting for her to do something. Her freckled face was blank. Leaning down, he whispered in her ear and she brightened.

  Drawing out her skirts with one hand, she curtsied and Sophie did the same. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, but I’m very glad you did.”

  “If I let the weather deter me, Miss Menzies, the war would never have been won.” There was wry amusement in Seamus’s gaze and something akin to relief. “When would you like for me to collect her?”

  Never. She smiled at Lily Cate. “Three Chimneys parties can go on for . . .” Forever. “Nightfall, perhaps.”

  “You’re a gracious hostess.”

  She took a breath. “Before you go, sir, I wanted to ask about the guard you’ve posted.”

  His gaze was unwavering. “Is there some problem?”

  “I was just wondering . . . is it truly necessary, General?”

  “Necessary? Given the expense of crown glass, I’d say it was essential. The arrangement won’t go on forever. Just till all hostilities cease.”

  Would they ever? Clasping Lily Cate’s hand, she began moving toward the morning room tucked behind the stairs, a smaller, cozier spot than the front parlor where she’d first met with him. Lily Cate didn’t look back or bid him goodbye, leaving Sophie to smile self-consciously in farewell, glad when he turned and retraced his way down the steps.

  They stood on the threshold of the morning room, surveying the toys rescued from the attic. Sophie said, “I’m glad you’ve brought your doll.”

  “Her name’s Sophie—and she’s your doll, remember.”

  “Not anymore. She’s been a bit downcast hidden away in the attic for so long. She needs a real playmate like you.”

  Lily Cate hugged the doll close. “I take her everywhere with me and even bring her to table. The general tells me not to, so I hide her on my lap.”

  Sophie smiled, sure he was well aware of the simple deception. “She might be hungry then, though I’m not sure what dolls like to eat.”

  “I do. Rose petals.” Lily Cate reached out and plucked a spent blossom off the linen cloth.

  For a moment Sophie enjoyed the pleasure filling Lily Cate’s usually solemn face as she took in sparkling if chipped china and a plate of chestnut flour biscuits with molasses. A far cry from scones and clotted cream and jam. A pewter bowl of lush pink roses graced the table, the last of the season.

  When they sat down, Sophie folded her hands. “Shall we give thanks for a lovely tea?”

  Lily Cate blinked. “You give thanks—pray?”

  “Always.”

  She tilted her head. “Why doesn’t the general pray?”

  “Perhaps he does so in secret.”

  “Uncle Richard and Aunt Charlotte pray.” She yawned, exposing tiny kitten teeth. “Long prayers that make me sleepy.”

  Sophie would have smiled but for the general’s prayerlessness. As it was, she stumbled on the other names. Anne’s Williamsburg relations? Lily Cate’s mother had had a sister, she recalled, trying to piece together what little she knew. What had Lily Cate said in the woods that day?

  The general came to collect me in the night, and there was only room for me atop his horse. Everything got left behind.

  With her father at war, the child had been in Williamsburg since her mother died—till he’d returned her to Tall Acre.

  Lily Cate’s eyes clouded. “I pray the general grows his fingers again.”

  “Oh?”

  “I pray I can go back to Williamsburg and get my toys.”

  “Williamsburg is a lovely place. I used to live there too, in a townhouse at the end of England Street.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Sometimes.” Sophie suppressed the wistful ache. “But I’m here now, and I’ve met you.”

  Joining hands, they bowed their heads and Sophie spoke the words her mother had taught her long ago. “We thank Thee, Lord, for happy hearts, for rain and sunny weather. We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food, and that we are together. Amen.”

  Leaning closer, Lily Cate whispered, “You forgot to pray for the general’s fingers.”

  Sophie closed her eyes again. “We pray too for healing for General Ogilvy’s injuries, seen and unseen. And we thank Thee that he was very brave in battle and has come home to Tall Acre at last.”

  Looking satisfied, Lily Cate watched as Sophie pretended to pour tea into the doll’s miniature cup. “We’ll serve our honored guest first.”

  Lily Cate peered closer. “But there’s nothing coming out.”

  “I think she’d rather eat rose petals.”

  Lily Cate giggled, the sound like a chime in the quiet room. Whoever had raised Seamus Ogilvy’s daughter had taught her fine manners. She sipped her tea daintily, scattered no crumbs, and declined a second biscuit. “I’ll send one home to your father,” Sophie told her.

  “He’ll be glad as we have no cook.” She made a face. “Well, there’s Florie, but she burns things. He’s seeking another.”


  Sophie sipped her tea. “There’s much afoot at Tall Acre then.”

  Lily Cate nodded. “The general has a hand in everything. He even helped with my hair.” She touched her lopsided bow. “But when he brushes it, he tears out the tangles and everything.”

  The idea of him fussing with so simple a task made her smile. “Perhaps you should ask him to be gentler.”

  “I do, but he still isn’t.”

  “Perhaps if you called him Papa and not the general he would be,” Sophie ventured. What did it matter to her what she called him? But somehow it did.

  Looking pensive, Lily Cate asked to be excused then slipped out of her seat, drawn to the toys. Dropping down beside her, Sophie showed her the painted Pandora dolls hidden inside the dollhouse’s parlor, and the novelty of the tiny dog with its wagging tail. They began rearranging furniture and hosting a ball to which even the dog was invited, both of them unaware of Glynnis coming in to clear the table and the grumble of distant thunder.

  Suddenly Lily Cate sat back on her heels. “I hope the gener—Papa—forgets to come get me.”

  Sophie read the worry in her honest eyes. They were the same remarkable shade of her father’s and bore the same unsettling disquiet.

  “If I can’t go back to Williamsburg, Miss Sophie, I want to stay with you.”

  “Your papa would miss you if you did.”

  “He could come visit us sometimes . . . for tea.”

  Reaching out, Sophie coaxed back a wisp of midnight hair and straightened Lily Cate’s awkward bow. “Even if I wanted to keep you, I couldn’t.”

  “Do you already have a little girl?”

  “Not yet, but I hope to someday.” ’Twas the wrong thing to say. The light in Lily Cate’s eyes was snuffed like candle flame. Sophie checked the impulse to plant a kiss on her furrowed brow. “For now ’tis just the two of us, and I’m very thankful.”

  Looking only slightly relieved, Lily Cate pressed a hand over her mouth and yawned. Was she in need of a nap? Glynnis napped. Henry napped. Sophie, never. Following the girl’s cue, she opened her arms in invitation, feeling sleepy herself. Without a word, Lily Cate climbed onto her lap.

  Warmed by the unfamiliar weight of her, Sophie shut her own eyes, as hungry for a caring touch as Lily Cate. Though she’d loved her mother with all her heart, Evelyn Baird Menzies had not been a demonstrative woman. Was the general not a demonstrative man?

  “I hope she’s not slept the whole afternoon.”

  Behind her stood Seamus Ogilvy, obviously having been let in by Glynnis. Sophie looked to the window, the autumn darkness creeping in. Unable to turn round to greet him without waking Lily Cate, Sophie said over her shoulder, “I think all our playing wore her out.”

  “’Tis more than that.” A soldierly stiffness tightened his tone. “She doesn’t sleep much at night for crying.”

  “Crying?”

  “Aye . . . night after night.”

  The complaint in his low words caught at her. “Do you not go to her? Take her in your arms?”

  “I—why would I?”

  “Why?” The question came soft but reproachful nonetheless. “Have your years in the field made you so hard a man you’ve become unmoved by your own daughter, General?”

  “Mayhap.” He came nearer, taking a wing chair. “The truth is she’s afraid of me.”

  “Afraid of you? Why wouldn’t she be?” She darted a glance at Lily Cate, fearing she’d awaken to their intense whispering. “She’s likely never seen a man with a ravaged hand.”

  “She’s my daughter,” he shot back, as if that should resolve everything.

  She took a breath. “You’re a stranger to her, simply a man in uniform who’s been grievously wounded. She’s a wee girl, and you’ve been away even longer. She’s lost her mother. She might have lost you—”

  “But she didn’t.” He leaned forward, legs slightly apart, cocked hat hanging from his peg of an injured hand. “We have five years to make up for, and I can’t begin to get past her fear of me.”

  “Taking her in your arms might help.” She held his gaze, so startled by the pain in his expression she nearly backed down. “Be less the general and more a father. Hold her close at night and chase the shadows away.”

  A muscle convulsed in his jaw. “The only person I want in my arms at night is my wife.”

  The intimate detail set her face aflame. “I understand your loss—”

  “Do you?”

  “I’ve had many losses of my own, if not a husband.” She looked away, finding the worn, floral weave of the carpet all too absorbing. “Though you have no wife, you do have a bewildered daughter who wants to return to Williamsburg or stay here with me. You need to do something.”

  “And that includes taking the advice of an unmarried woman with no children of her own.” Though his tone remained measured, she nearly flinched at the steel behind it.

  “I do speak from experience, General Ogilvy. My father was a military man, if you recall.” She swallowed, on a precarious limb. She never spoke of past hurts, but in Lily Cate’s case . . . “He had little time for a daughter and not much more for a son. I scarcely remember a kiss, a kind word. I beg you to do better—”

  “Pardon me, Miss Menzies. But if I’d wanted a lecture about fatherhood, I would have asked for one.” Bending down, he gathered his sleeping daughter up in his arms, his maimed hand struggling for firm hold of her. Sophie got to her feet, wanting to help but feeling helpless in the face of his temper.

  The happiness of the afternoon shattered. Seamus Ogilvy was regarding her with none of the charm of before. In the span of a few minutes, with a few hasty, misplaced words, she’d become his adversary. And she, inexplicably, wanted to burst into childish tears.

  He went out, striding past a wary Glynnis in the foyer, to the rain-soaked coach at the foot of the steps. Sophie stood in the open parlor doorway, wishing he’d look back. Make amends. Let her make amends. But the coach rattled away, all her hopes with it.

  Glynnis studied her, mouth twisted sorrowfully. “He’s a good man who bears a heavy load, coming home from a long war and trying to make a go of it again.”

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “Help? He’s hardly the same man I let in a few minutes ago. What on earth happened?”

  Sophie sought an explanation. How could she voice his presence, his intensity? Or her own frightful candor? “Lily Cate seems somewhat shy of him. I thought I could make him see he needs to tread lightly with her.” She reached up and tore off her lace cap, sending hairpins scattering. “I suppose, my being without proper company for so long, my manners slipped and I said too much.”

  “Well, officers don’t like to be given orders. They simply like to give them.” Glynnis hooked a consoling arm through hers and led her toward the warmth and light of the kitchen. “He’ll likely consider what you said in time, though he’ll have to cool down first. As for you, you’re as flushed as I’ve ever seen you. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were more moonstruck than anything.”

  Moonstruck? Sophie pushed a wayward strand of hair from her eye, avoiding Glynnis’s probing gaze. “I’m glad you know better.”

  I only wish I did.

  5

  Seamus was willing to try it once, if only to tell his meddlesome neighbor it didn’t work. After tugging off his boots, he stripped down to his linen shirt and stocking feet. The door to his bedchamber stood open despite the chill, the bed curtains parted. He’d done the same with Lily Cate’s room, afraid he’d sleep through her tears. He wanted to get to her before she’d thrown up her supper as she sometimes did, crying so hard she made herself sick. Her reaction seemed extreme, and he had to continually rein himself in lest he tell her to pull herself together like he had some of his men.

  She’s only five . . . She’s missing Williamsburg . . . I’m a strange man missing fingers . . . This house is strange too . . .

  The candlelight danced across his untidy desk beneath a shutte
red window, reminding him to finish the letter he’d started at dawn. He was writing a friend in Richmond to help secure a governess or nursemaid. Once Lily Cate started school, he hoped she’d find an escape in books. Till then, he’d bought her a pony and was teaching her to ride—or trying to—but she seemed as afraid of her horse as she was him so he’d nearly given up.

  Finished with the letter, he lay down atop the bed, trying to chase the image of Sophie Menzies from his mind. She’d sat so serenely in her Windsor chair, her lovely skirts in a swell of silken embroidery around her, her cheek resting against Lily Cate’s dark hair as she held her. As if it was something she did every day like breathing or walking or smiling. Easily. Freely. Willingly. Even joyously.

  He felt none of those things with his daughter.

  Sophie Menzies should have had children of her own by now. He nearly winced at the memory of slighting her unmarried state. Likely she was as touchy about spinsterhood as he was at being an inept father. She’d spoken of losses. Her brother, certainly. A fiancé, mayhap. Someone who’d died fighting? Now she was caught in a waiting game of hoping and praying Curtis would return. He hadn’t the heart to tell her he’d received an unconfirmed report about Curtis and his whereabouts. He hardly believed the news himself.

  Turning his head, he squinted at the mantel timepiece, making out ten o’clock through the shadows. Like clockwork he heard a little cry resembling a kitten’s mewl or a lamb’s bleating. His daughter had a soldier’s punctuality. She never fussed when the maid first put her to bed. She only cried when she woke at ten o’clock and then all through the night after.

  He was on his feet, that strange heart-pumping rush working in his chest like it always did before battle. He wished Sophie Menzies was here. Nay, ’twas Anne he wanted. Lily Cate was her child—their child—after all.

  A nightlight was burning on a bedside table, the kind that made catching fire impossible with its snug globe and holder. Lily Cate was cocooned in the bedcovers, her loosened hair like spilled ink across the linen pillow.