by Diana Davis
“In here,” she replied from the bedroom. She tucked the pamphlet under her pillow and sat up.
“Another package came for you.” Mercy brought the parcel over to her, and Temperance’s stomach crawled toward the floor with each step.
She had been joking when she suggested that delaying a reply might prompt Godfrey to send a full parure. At this rate, she would only lack a tiara before the week was out. And perhaps not even that.
Mercy handed over the parcel and Temperance unwrapped it. An elaborate diamond necklace. It matched the earrings, second bracelet and ring he’d sent this week.
Obviously he’d sensed the reason why Temperance had selected him in the first place. Did he think she was delaying to extract more bribes?
“Put it with the others, please,” Temperance murmured. Mercy obeyed, tucking the parcel in Temperance’s drawer of their shared wardrobes.
Mercy closed the drawer but didn’t turn around. “Do you mean to marry him?”
Temperance was silent for a long moment. “I don’t see how I can,” she finally said.
Mercy settled on the edge of Patience’s bed. “Why?”
“Did you not hear what happened when Constance and I dined with Godfrey last?”
Mercy hadn’t, so Temperance related the bewildering story. “He wouldn’t defend the weakest among us,” Temperance finished. “And perhaps I’m a fool for saying so, but I can’t marry someone who would treat my family with so little respect.” She paused. “As the king has treated us colonists.”
Her youngest sister’s focus slowly drifted away. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything. She knew Patience leaned patriot but the other girls avoided politics, as they’d been taught to do all their lives.
At last, Mercy met her eyes again. “Not because you love Owen?”
Temperance pressed her lips together as if that could hold back her emotion. “Owen wouldn’t have me. He shouldn’t, anyway.”
Mercy tilted her head. “Did he say that? Because I think that’s probably a decision Owen is quite capable of making himself.”
It was Temperance’s turn to regard her sister with surprise. Perhaps she really should pry into what Mercy had gotten up to, if she were suddenly an expert on relationships. But Temperance knew the truth: “All he wants is to do what’s right, and I’ve told him not to and disrespected him at every turn. After the way I’ve treated him, I wouldn’t deserve him.”
“That’s Owen’s decision as well.” Mercy took her hand. “Will you not try?”
“I’ve tried twice, Mercy. I’ve made such a mess of things — I thought I knew what I wanted, and now that I have it —” She gestured toward the wardrobe drawer where Mercy had just hidden the latest jewels. “It will never make me happy.”
“We’re seldom happy doing what we know is wrong.”
And all Owen had ever tried to do was what was right, from defending Cooper to defending the colonies. Even at the risk of his own life — but didn’t Winthrop’s death show that there were no guarantees there?
She couldn’t bear to think of this any longer, however, not when she knew how Owen must really feel. “When did you become so wise?” she teased her sister.
“Oh, I’ve been watching all along,” Mercy said. “I certainly hope to deal with any suitor with a great deal more sense than you or Patience have shown!”
Temperance laughed. “I won’t speak for Patey, but I’m sure you’ll make better choices than I have.”
“We shall see. Checkers?” Mercy offered. “Or fox and geese?”
“Nine-man morris. Better to make sure you’ll choose a better suitor,” Temperance joked, although there were no actual men involved in that game.
Yes, if she couldn’t have Owen — and she couldn’t — Temperance would be far better off staying here with her family. The only other place she’d ever belonged.
After a week of studying Cassandra’s favorite pamphlets, Temperance’s sense of obligation forced her to return them to her cousin. Owen was not in the office that she saw, though she tried not to look, and he was not in the Beauforts’ drawing room as she’d feared.
However, another surprise waited in the drawing room: a state of disarray. Crates were stacked high along one wall, and the furniture was all pushed against another.
“So sorry for this mess, cousin,” Cassandra greeted her. “David has decided we must start packing right away.”
Temperance surveyed the crates stuffed with straw and, presumably, Beaufort breakables. “Packing?”
“We’re moving house.”
Before Temperance could register an objection, Cassandra added, “David bought the Pedersens’ house the minute I told him we were expecting.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” Temperance suspected she would have known this good news much sooner if she hadn’t worked so hard to keep her distance from Cassandra. On the other hand, having an ever-expanding Beaufort brood next door would not have been happy news to her a few weeks ago.
Temperance gave her the pamphlets. “Thank you so much. They were most instructive.”
“Aren’t they? Would that such fearsome intellects always be turned toward the right.”
Temperance bit her lip. She’d certainly turned the opposite direction enough lately.
“Obviously we can’t host anyone here,” Cassandra continued, “but Uncle Josiah agreed to have that Bellamy man join a few of us for dinner tomorrow. Won’t you come? I could use someone on my side.”
Temperance met her gaze again. Cassandra really had forgiven her. “I’d like that. Bellamy — he’s the man who owns the slave you need manumitted?”
“Caleb, yes. If we can get Bellamy to agree, Caleb’s whole family could be freed.” Cassandra gave the pamphlets a sad smile. “It’s so very little.”
“But it will mean everything to that family. I wish you both luck.”
“We shall need it,” Cassandra murmured. “David rode all the way to Virginia last fall, and Bellamy refused to do business with him.”
Temperance’s brain instantly leapt into stratagem. They’d already attempted to pay the man. They didn’t know him well enough to blackmail him. How else might they achieve their objective?
The front door flew open without a knock. Temperance and Cassandra both backed away from whoever might be intruding.
Nathaniel, Cassandra’s brother-in-law, strode in. “Cassandra, can you come?”
“Is it time?”
“She says it is.” He added further information for Temperance. “Two false alarms last week.”
She had to assume “alarm” was not referring to the false reports of redcoat attacks that had circulated briefly over the last few months. No, this could only mean one thing: Helen’s baby was coming.
“Let me get my cloak — but if it’s a boy, I’m telling you, I’ve claimed Thomas.”
Nathaniel sighed. “You can’t claim a name. Besides, you already have Elizabeth.”
Temperance suppressed her mirth. Elizabeth had been her aunt’s name, Helen and Cassandra’s late mother, and Thomas their departed father.
If she never married, she could never name a child after her father. Or her husband.
She steeled herself, bid her cousin goodbye, and slipped out amid Cassandra’s midwifery preparations. She hadn’t even asked when Cassandra’s baby would be expected, but surely her family would supply that detail.
In the meantime, she had a strategy to employ. Cassandra was right, it was so very little, but it was the right thing to do.
Temperance scarcely had time to prepare a strategy by the following afternoon. She came downstairs at the appointed time, tucking in her finest lace cuffs again. She knew the deep green of her finest gown set off her eyes, and she hoped it set off the full set of Godfrey’s diamonds.
They were hers and she’d do with them what she liked. Even if wearing them this early was unseemly.
She found a few guests already ass
embled in their green-paneled drawing room, her friend Nell Maxson among them. Nell’s in-laws owned the mother and daughter Cassandra was trying to free.
She had to defend the right — and rights. Perhaps the Maxsons could be prevailed upon to change their terms, and this was the perfect opportunity to try.
Temperance approached Nell and embraced her. She congratulated her once again on her little one, now nearly four months old, shared news of their mutual friends, and made sure all was well with Nell’s family before she began on her hastily formed strategy. “I understand my cousins are trying to conduct some business with your family?”
“That business with my father-in-law’s slaves?” Nell frowned. “Most immoderate.”
“Oh?” Temperance glanced at David, pacing alone between the pockets of people. Where was Cassandra? “How so?”
“Mrs. Beaufort first asked them to free a girl of seven. I ask you, where would she go? Would she and Lord David take her in?”
“He prefers not to use the title.” Temperance softened the correction with a smile.
“Ah. Well, it’s still a very ill-conceived plan.”
Temperance regarded David again. “Perhaps so, but that’s likely more her problem than any of yours. Why not free the child and her mother, as she asks?”
Nell sighed as if this were all very tiresome. “We only have their best interests in mind. Does a freed black woman have a way to support herself and a child? Even a gentlewoman might struggle to do so!”
An image of Owen’s humble home surfaced in Temperance’s mind. She doubted Nell even understood the challenges of poverty if she lived in a family rich enough to own other people.
Temperance sensed she shouldn’t quote from the pamphlet railing against slavery written by David’s friend Dr. Rush which Cassandra had loaned her. Ye advocates for American liberty, rouse up and espouse the cause of humanity and general liberty. Bear a testimony against a vice which degrades human nature.
She tried a different tack. “It just seems to me that you lose nothing if you allow David to pay you for them.”
“And it seems to me that they lose nothing by continuing on with our family. We give them a home and food; there is no guarantee of either were they freed.”
This time, Temperance didn’t hold back from the pamphlet. “I don’t know about that. ‘By the greatest humanity we can show them, we only lessen, but do not remove the crime, for the injustice of it continues the same.’ Do you not wish to do what’s right?”
“We’re trying to,” Nell insisted.
“I’m sure that’s precisely how Parliament feels about Boston.”
Nell straightened. “We cannot budge in this. We will not condemn them to a worse fate than they face with us.”
Temperance held back a frown. This argument could only continue in the same circles. There had to be a better way. She excused herself and caught up with David, pacing in his finest black velvet, the gold braid glinting in the sun. “Are you well, cousin?” she asked.
“I’m all right, thank you.” But the worry on his brow said otherwise.
Perhaps the Maxsons weren’t the only way Temperance might be of assistance. “Is the guest of honor here?”
He scanned the room. “Not yet.”
“Is everything ready for him? All is well?”
“Yes, just — Helen was delivered of a son last night.”
“Wonderful!”
David flashed a brief smile. “Very — but Cassandra is naturally staying with her today.”
“Oh, of course.” She should probably be there herself. “And that isn’t good?”
“I was merely depending on having her here. To help with Bellamy. I wasn’t very effective at convincing him.”
Temperance took David’s arm. “Here. I’ll be your substitute hostess. Don’t trouble yourself.”
David cast her an uncertain look but conceded that he had few alternatives. Before they could discuss strategy further, the door opened and Bellamy was announced. Temperance gave David’s elbow a reassuring pat, and he led her over to begin the introductions.
Owen stared up at the pinked brick of the Hayes home. Why was he here? Yes, David had invited him, but how was he so foolish to come back to this house? Certainly Temperance would be at this party. Perhaps she’d finally stop putting Godfrey off and announce her engagement, and Owen could move on at last from this stupid, ridiculous hope that kept springing up like a noxious weed.
With a sigh, he trudged up to the door. The maid Ginny conducted him to the dining room.
Instantly, his eyes went to Temperance. Even if he hadn’t still been wrestling with these feelings nor she near the head of the table, he would have been hard pressed to miss the sparkle of the diamonds hanging from her ears and neck and wrists.
Had she already accepted Godfrey’s proposal? Josiah Hayes was well off, but not so much that he could drape any of his daughters in that many diamonds. Sibbald seemed the only answer, no matter what David had thought.
But once he saw past the glittering, Owen was even more alarmed. That wasn’t Godfrey Sibbald she was sitting with. Practically fawning over. He checked the room. Her skeletal suitor was nowhere in sight among two dozen of Philadelphia’s finest.
Judging by the man’s chair positioned at David’s right hand, could that be the guest of honor? Bellamy had to be married, didn’t he?
David caught Owen’s attention and beckoned him over. There was a seat empty at David’s left. David knew at least some of their history, and he had to have pieced together something had gone wrong if Temperance and Sibbald were courting. Why would he purposefully place Owen practically right across from Temperance?
No, not across from Temperance. Across from the next man she was pursuing.
David made the introductions, and Owen addressed Nehemiah Bellamy immediately. “Did your wife not accompany you to Philadelphia?”
“Oh, no, the cold wouldn’t agree with her.”
“How unfortunate.” Owen never took his gaze off Bellamy, but the diamonds’ gleam made it impossible to miss Temperance straightening in her chair.
Good. She should stop leaning against a married man.
“Mr. Bellamy,” Temperance said, and now Owen had to look at her. She had that same coquettish smile she’d used on Godfrey Sibbald, which she’d probably used on Winthrop Morley. Had she used it on Owen?
He wasn’t certain which answer was worse.
“Yes, Miss Hayes?” Bellamy answered.
“Tell me, what do you grow on your estate? Is that right, an estate?”
“Oh, we’d call it a farm. Maybe a plantation.”
Temperance’s mouth formed into a little circle. “How magnificent!” She spoke to David. “Isn’t it?”
“Very,” he agreed readily. He was party to this? “You should see it, cousin.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” She turned to Bellamy. “And you make all the decisions for all those people? And crops?”
The farmer nodded modestly.
Temperance aimed wide eyes at David again as if she couldn’t believe how very impressive that all was before returning to Bellamy. “You must be incredibly wise.”
“Oh no.” Bellamy’s voice made it clear the humility was feigned and her tactic was working. What on earth could Temperance hope to get from this man? “I’m just a simple farmer.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Temperance said, patting his elbow. “No, you strike me as a man of business.”
Owen’s jaw dropped before he could stop it, but he quickly lifted his glass to try to cover the gaffe. Bellamy, a businessman? His simple homespun coat wasn’t even clean. Owen was poor, took little account for his clothing or fashion and hadn’t had time to change out of his uniform coat after drills this morning, yet he was still better turned out. Bellamy certainly couldn’t have been a farmer of means in Virginia if he showed up to dine in Philadelphia without powdering his hair. Not that
Owen judged anyone who couldn’t afford such a luxury — he couldn’t either, but no one accused him of business sense.
Bellamy, however, allowed a small smile to perk up his lips. Temperance trailed a finger down his arm — Owen had definitely seen her do that to Sibbald, and she had definitely not done it to Owen. Then she wagged her finger in Bellamy’s face. “You mustn’t underestimate yourself, darling. You are a man who knows how to take advantage of an opportunity.”
Owen set his wineglass down but caught the edge of his plate. The red liquid sloshed across Bellamy’s plate and into his lap, but Temperance jumped clear of the spill.
“Oh — I am so sorry — I —” He knew he ought to replace Bellamy’s clothing, probably ruined, but where would he get the money for that?
David’s hand landed on Owen’s shoulder. “I’ll replace your suit,” David told Bellamy smoothly. He gestured Ginny over and she brought a towel. “Come.” David stood. “We should retire to the drawing room anyway.” He addressed Owen. “Do eat.”
“I should go —”
“No, stay, please.” David waited until Owen met his gaze before offering reassurance. “Do that at the royal court and then you might have a reason to retreat.”
Had David spilled a drink at dinner with royalty? Owen could believe he’d dined with them, but he had a hard time imagining David ever having made such a mistake.
“Do you play checkers?” Temperance asked Bellamy with a droll spark in her gaze.
“I have.” Bellamy said it as though he would easily win.
He underestimated Temperance. And she was relying on that.
Bellamy preceded David and Temperance out of the room. Before David and Temperance followed, they exchanged words. Owen couldn’t possibly have heard them from this distance with this many people in the room, but he did see Temperance raise both hands in a placating gesture.
At least someone was attempting to stand up for reason. Owen propped one elbow on the table and held his forehead. When had Temperance become such a menace? Had he been so blinded by the threat she posed to his own heart that he’d never seen how ruthless she could be? And what on earth did she want from Bellamy, who was twice her age, portly and married?