“James, I love ya. Ya know I do. So why—”
“She is…” he began, still whispering. “She was my mother.”
“Yar mother?”
“Aye.” He rubbed his face harder, and now with both hands.
Laura reached for the paper. “Ya said she died birthing ya.”
“I’m sorry.” He listened to her silence. “I made a promise years ago t’ never tell—”
“Never tell what? The truth?”
There it was. Reflexively, he surveyed the area for anything she might hit him with. He eased a copper pitcher away with his boot. Then began. “The truth is—”
“Ya couldn’t tell me the truth?”
“I just—”
“So, who are ya? Are ya even James Annesley?”
“Aye.”
She got to her feet. “Is that much true?”
“Aye.”
“Was Arthur yar father?”
“Aye.”
“So, I’m pledged to marry a man who lies about who he is—”
“Laura—”
“What else have ya lied to me about? What—”
“Nothing, Acushla. Truly—”
“Don’t I deserve the truth? I’m sorry about yar mother, but…” She was against the far wall now, glaring at him. “Why couldn’t ya have just admitted it? Ya’re the son of Arthur Annesley….” She restudied the passage. “The Earl…and…Mary Sheffield. Why couldn’t ya have just told me?” She stopped. She read it again. “The daughter of the Duke of Buckingham.” Her brow furrowed. But it was not in anger this time. It was something else. “Buckingham Palace?”
“I suppose so. But I didn’t—”
“Why James?”
“I’m sorry. Truly, I am.” He saw she was reading it once again. “If ye only knew how much I hate to see ye upset like this.”
She gently shook her head. “I am sorry about yar mother.”
“‘Tis all right.” He half rose, then moved around to sit beside her, against her wall. She let him wrap her in his arms. “I should have told ye long ago.”
“Yar father was an Earl. Not a stableman?”
“Nay, not at stablemen at all. He didn’t do well with horses.”
“And the Duke of Buckingham was yar—”
“I never knew him.”
“Do ya have any other family? Any brothers?”
“Nay.” He shook his head, knowing what she was thinking.
“So, ya’re….” She peered at him. “Are ya an Earl? The Earl of Anglias?”
“Anglesea. Aye. I am. I would be.” He stood and offered her his hand. “Let me walk ye. I’ll tell ye.”
Outside, they found Bjorn’s wagon and waiting horses. He had walked home. They returned to Richmond with Laura sitting close, listening devotedly. He told her everything.
At the press house, he received Morris’s forgiveness for the abrupt departure, followed by permission to return Monday. Before returning to the wagon, James brisked to his quarters behind the shop. There he opened his creaky trunk at the foot of his cot, rifled past the quadrant, and retrieved the Buckingham “B” key from its burlap wrap. Perhaps it would convince Laura of that same hope, that same truth, of which it had once convinced him: his mother loved him.
They resumed the road and the story. Time languished along, measured only by the slow, slack clip-clop of hooves. James talked gently, lowly, guiding them across the Virginia countryside, down the James River, crossing at Pinckney Ferry, then eased them back toward the Johansson farm. Laura sat quietly composed through most of his journey, slowly caressing the key in her small hands. She asked few questions. She wept when Juggy died. She smiled through the stories of Seán. Though the day’s light had descended through the trees, James was feeling brighter with each passing fence, each hill surmounted, each event chronicled, memories loosed, pain avowed. All anew, like old letters pulled from locked trunks and read aloud. In a resurrection of candor, each memory arose to take its first breath in years. And he loved her for listening. She understood. She forgave. She blessed open those chambers of youth denied, damage unrequited, destiny unfulfilled. She held wide his heart’s heavy gates.
When they arrived at the farm, they put the wagon away and sat silently on a stack of oak. Each still traveling that journey in their head. Each held by those stories said. He pulled her close, an arm around her slender back. He looked up. For the first time in years he was awed by that spread of diamonds overhead.
“When are ya going back?” she asked.
“I’ll stay in the barn tonight. I don’t—”
“To Ireland, James. When will ya return to Dublin?”
He sniffed and closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Ya must return, James.” Her voice was a velvet whisper. “Ya must claim what’s yars.” She held up the key.
“Not now. Keep it. I don’t want to go now.” He tied the sailcloth around her neck, letting the key slip into her cleavage. “Someday. Not now. I won’t lose ye, Laura.”
“Aye, you won’t,” she said, her blue gaze flickering up from her chest, squaring it on him. “I won’t have ya staying on my account.”
“Fourteen years I’ve dreamed myself on Irish soil, facing that evil man. But then….”
“Then what?” she asked. “Then me?”
“Aye. My dear Laura. Then God granted my greatest wish. I found ye. To marry ye. ‘Tis all I now desire.”
“Ya’ll never lose me. Do ya not know that?” She waited for him to reply. He nodded. “Ya’ll break my heart, James,” she began, her voice losing its tenderness, “if ya don’t return on account of me.”
“I know, but—”
“I won’t have it!” She scooted away. “I won’t! How do ya think it makes me feel to be the one keeping ya from being the man ya truly are, from claiming yar very home?”
“When did I say being the Earl, having all that….when did I say that was who I really am? When did I say Dunmain or Dublin was my home? To marry ye and settle here, to make ye happy—”
“I’ll go with ya.”
He watched her eyes. Then smiled. Then began to quietly laugh.
“Don’t laugh. We’ll wait out yar term, marry, and sail together.”
He could hear her heels sinking into the hardening earth. “Yer family—”
“Ya’re my family, James Annesley.”
“It would be a fight there, in Ireland. I might not win. I could never put ye in danger. Not for a title, or money or land. Not for anything. These men, if they’re still alive—”
Laura pulled his face toward her. “Hear me now good sir. I agreed to marry ya long before I knew any of this. If ya never have a shilling more than ya have now, I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn. Ya know that?”
“I do.”
“‘Tis who ya are that matters to me. I’ll have no part in keeping ya from claiming what’s rightfully yars, from righting this terrible wrong done ya. Ya have to go, and I’m coming with ya.” He started to speak and she covered his mouth with her small hand. “I’ll hear no more about it,” she breathed.
A moronic grin came over him and would not go away.
Chapter 20
Then will thou go and leave me here?
Ah do not so my dearest dear.
The sun’s departure clouds the sky;
But thy departure makes me die.
— Valediction, Sir Robert Ayton, 1604
Dead leaves whirled beyond the open kitchen door at the back of the small farmhouse. She was just inside, watching the orange and red ghosts play. Behind her, the sound of huffing and the hostile thumping of a knife proclaimed her mother’s displeasure. Laura felt warm. Was she getting ill? A draft rounded through the house, wafting past her, flicking the pink linen of her dress. Her father was right. It was an odd autumn. Odd to be so warm this late in the year.
“So he’ll go?” Hanna was saying, not pausing for a reply.
“And ya’ll go as well, I suppose.” Her mother’s disappointment had turned sharp. She was hacking so fast that bits of potato were flying onto the planked floor.
Laura wheeled around. “Vhat would ya’ve done, Mama? If it’d been Papa? Vhat if he had to go?”
“Laura!” Hanna glowered at her daughter.
“When ya and Papa came to America, Gran couldn’t have been—”
“Laura, stop. When yar papa and I came here, we settled and built our family. Our new lives were to be here, with all our children. Never could we imagine one of ya going back. Across that godless, unmerciful ocean. Starting yar own life.” Her voice trailed to a yielding, empty whisper. “So far away. I don’t know.”
“Mama.” She could see the tears welling in her mother’s eyes. “I want to be here. James wants to be here. He’s a good man. Ya know that. We won’t be gone forever. Only till he’s reclaimed what’s rightfully his. Then we’ll be back.”
“Humph!” Hanna sniffed and resumed chopping.
“Ya’ll have grandchildren,” Laura tried.
“Why would he give up all that wealth? Fifty thousand acres, didn’t ya say? That’s a country in itself. Why would he give that up?”
“It’s not what he wants.” Laura looked away, touching her forehead, a half massage against a pending headache.
Hanna went on, “Don’t be naive. I’m happy for ya. If he regains it all. But I am scared for ya all the same.” She shook her head. “I am scared for me, for yar papa. I’m scared we’ll never see ya again.” Now the tears were coming so fully that she had to put down the knife. Laura slid across the kitchen to hold her mother. They both silently cried.
After a moment, Hanna pulled herself upright, sniffed and wiped her face with her apron. “Ya’re a fine daughter.” They heard voices approaching outside. She wiped a tear from Laura’s cheek.
“That’s a rich field you have there, Mr. Johansson,” said a man outside. Laura recognized Captain Blackwell, a merchant vessel master who came around once a year, bringing his men to roll Bjorn’s tobacco hogsheads to a barge on the James River. From there they would be floated down to Yorktown and placed aboard Blackwell’s ship, the Kathleen. Where Blackwell took them, she didn’t know.
“A cup of tea and we’ll seal our arrangement.” Bjorn’s voice was surprisingly formal.
“Grand,” replied Blackwell. The men were on the other side of the door, stomping mud from their boots.
“James?” asked Bjorn.
Laura heard James say from a distance, “I’ll be there directly.”
The men stepped inside. “Hanna, look who’s joined us. Ya remember Captain Blackwell?”
Hanna crossed the room warmly. “Ah, Captain. So glad to see ya’re in God’s health, as ya are.” Laura admired the way her mother could so quickly rally after a cry.
“I am indeed. And Miss Johansson.” Blackwell gave both ladies a slight bow.
“Hello Captain Blackwell,” Laura offered.
Hanna turned. “Laura, fetch some muffins and tea for the gentlemen.”
“Aya, Mama.”
“I hear cheers are in order for the new couple,” announced the captain.
“Yes,” Laura said, beaming, then turned and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Captain Blackwell and I have come to an arrangement.” Her father was shouting to make himself heard from the other room. “I think ya’ll find quite agreeable, Laura. And fortunate!”
Laura returned to the parlor, placed mugs before the men and began to pour the tea. “Truly? What might that be?”
“The good captain has agreed to carry James back to Ireland.”
Laura stopped pouring. She stared at her father, who was beaming.
He continued, “Don’t worry. There’ll be no fare. And he’ll return him here by the same means.” Bjorn was clearly proud of this idea.
“That’s most generous of ya, Captain Blackwell,” said Laura tersely. “Did Papa tell ya we intend to marry first and sail to Ireland together?”
Bjorn interjected, “Laura, the Kathleen departs in a week’s time, so he’ll be going—”
“Now?” Laura threw open her hands. “He’d have to go now?” Just then, James stepped into the house, and Laura spun to glare at him, shocked and angry. “Now?”
“Aye, Laura,” James replied calmly, coming to her. “I couldn’t o’erleap this opportunity. Think upon it. I’ll be over and back before our wedding day. It will—”
“Ya’d be a runaway, James! I won’t have ya a slave, and wait another seven years to marry ya.” Her throat was tight with anger.
“Nay, Laura.” Her father reached for her. “Mr. Morris won’t find him.”
“So this was yar idea, Papa, that he should go alone?”
James frowned. “How is this any different than—”
“Ya didn’t answer me,” she raged at her father, at James. Tears streaked her flushed cheeks. “I can’t—”
“Laura!” Hanna snapped, silencing Laura’s storm.
“Laura. Acushla.” James tried to put an arm around her.
“Acushla, Acushla, James!” She shrugged him off. “Ya did this without talking t’me!”
Bjorn whispered, “Acushla?” Hanna shook her head. Neither of them knew Irish.
James persisted, “Morris would never let me go, if I told him. He’d think t’ sell my term. He may search for me, but won’t look far. And not for long. By Wednesday, I’ll be in Yorktown. I’ll board and be away before—”
“It will never work,” fumed Laura, shaking her head. “They always look for runaways at the naval docks first. Ya know that!.”
He wrapped her in his arms and whispered, “It will be alright.”
Laura was quiet a moment, then pulled away from him and walked out of the house. He followed quickly. They talked by the garden. She cried. He tried to explain. She had been right before—he had to go. But he would never risk her to the sea, to Bailyn, to Richard. He had to go alone. Couldn’t she see that? And if some harm came to him, she would be free to marry. This was best done now. Not later. Not two years from now. Not after a wedding. Not with children on the way. Now.
“I don’t know what I’d do without ya,” said Laura as he finished. She had finally stopped crying and was now leaning her back against a hickory tree that stretched its tired old branches high over the road.
“Nor could I bear life without ye.” He kissed her. “Whether I win or lose this matter, I’ll be back for ye, Laura. I will. And I’ll write ye as often as I can.”
“I as well,” she whispered with a pensive nod.
James inhaled deeply, then blew it out. “I’ll have to leave in the morning.”
“I hate this,” she said, her bottom lip quivering. “Why did I ever tell ya to go? If ya get hurt I’ll never forgive myself. Never. I’ll hate myself forever.”
He held her close, gently pulling her face to his chest, then stroked her golden hair. “Ye know ye were right. I have been running all my life from this. From Richard. I can never be the man ye need, the man I must be for ye, if I don’t do this now. Ye gave me the greatest gift beyond yer love. Ye gave me myself. My truth. My life. My youth. You did that. Now I can only make good yer gift. ‘Tis my duty.”
“Yar duty is to return to me, James Annesley.”
“Aye. Return, I will. I will bring myself back to ye, here in Virginia. I swear to ye.”
She touched his mouth. “Don’t swear upon it.”
“But I do. We’ll marry and have children. We’ll grow old together. I promise, my sweet Laura. Ye must be strong now. Ye must let me go.”
Chapter 21
October 6, 1742. RAN AWAY, this Monday morning, from Duncan Morris of Richmond, Virginia, an Irish servant man, James Annesley, straight, well made, and of a fresh complexion; about 27 years of age, five feet 10 or 11 inches, has green eyes, scar on left cheek, a smil
ing way of speaking to strangers, wears his own hair, light brown colour’d, which he mostly wears tied behind in a club; had on with him a half worn beaver hat, a blue great coat, silk scarf, white county cloth jacket, leather breeches, and is a tolerable likely fellow. Whoever takes up and secures the said Servant, so that his Master may have him again, shall have Four Pounds Reward, and reasonable charges paid by Duncan Morris.
— The Virginia Gazette, October 8, 1742
He was alone with her in an alley off De Grasse Street, obliged to keep his eyes sealed for her to appear. Embracing him. Tangibly there. She cooed at him vibrantly. She was proud of him. She said he was brave. Said he was right to go. He could see her eyes. Paired oceans absorbing him, glowing a nameless color relegated to stars, angels, to delusory dreams. Her warmth was near, brushing against him. He could feel her, that night, that last night they were together. When they made love. When only they were alive. Before he left. Now he was gone. He inhaled. Opening his eyes, he looked around. He blew the empty air from within him. It left him as she did. And now she was gone.
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