Tidewater Bride

by Laura Frantz

  Shay’s room was even more spartan, deprived of both his presence and possessions now on their way to the far frontier. Xander shut the door and opened the sole window. Sitting, he tugged off his boots and sank atop the feather mattress, which was far too warm for a summer’s day and much too short. Shay was more round than tall.

  But sleep was not on his mind tonight, his thoughts overfull of their storm of words with every attending emotion below. In time he heard Selah climb the stairs, her feet a whisper on wood. Her door shut, yet another barrier betwixt them. Within the confines of her room he heard a faint rustling as she and Watseka readied for bed.

  He had made a stab at courting Selah, and the outcome was less than he had hoped. But he, of all men in Virginia Colony, was known for his persistence. In tobacco cultivation.

  And now in courtship.

  Yawning, Selah arose before first light, leaving Watseka asleep upstairs. All were still abed but Izella, who laid the fire for breakfast. Assuming Shay’s chores, Selah first fed the chickens, then let the pup scamper about untethered as dawn lit the eastern sky. Heart full of last night’s honest exchange, she paused beneath the garden’s tattered arbor, the tangle of coral-hued honeysuckle most fragrant at first light. Her gaze rose to the roofline and Shay’s open window. No doubt Xander was an early riser—

  “Morning, Selah.”

  The low voice bade her turn. Skirts swaying, she faced him as he approached from the well, water buckets filled to the brim. How had she missed him?

  “Good morning, Xander.” Oh, his name tasted sweet. For a few fleeting seconds this seemed their house, their dewy morn. “You must be anxious to return to Rose-n-Vale.”

  “Not particularly.” His eyes were smiling. Reassuring.

  She’d not slowed his pursuit then. All her naysaying of last night fled with him so near.

  “The work will always be there.” His gaze left her and took in the sunburnt yard already inching toward midsummer. “But moments like these, nay.”

  He strode past her and set the fresh water within the kitchen’s open doorway while she began pulling weeds in the garden, mightily distracted. Taking hold of the wheelbarrow, he rounded the stable to the woodpile and set the axe to ringing, sparing her father the exertion. A gentling stole through her that this man, the best of Virginia, would perform so menial a task.

  Soon finished with the early morning chores, they stood together and watched the sunrise, a glory of red gold that kept them captivated till the sudden appearance of Watseka. Naked as a jaybird, she flew out of the house to greet her pup. The sudden commotion started the rooster’s crowing and Xander laughing. Selah rushed toward Watseka, scooped her up, and returned her to the house and the clothes they’d made her. Within minutes, looking considerably more uncomfortable, Watseka returned outside dressed in a miniature version of what Selah herself wore, down to the coif covering her black hair. But her tiny feet stayed bare.

  “’Tis her custom to bathe at first light.” He swung Watseka up onto sturdy shoulders. “A practice the odiferous English should follow.”

  Selah warmed all over at his bold words, thankful she’d bathed just yesterday. “Then I shan’t prevent her in future.”

  Watseka sank her hands into Xander’s tousled hair and asked him a question in her tongue. Replying, he set her on the mounting block, only to see her scamper toward her pup as fast as her English clothes allowed.

  As Selah watched, he left the courtyard to turn the cow to pasture, then retrieved his horse, signaling he would soon depart. But first breakfast.

  “Can you help me cook?” Selah called to Watseka once they were in the kitchen, passing her a long-handled wooden spoon. Though Watseka understood little English, she stood raptly by the porridge pot.

  “Supawn.” She pointed her spoon at the bubbling contents.

  “Supawn,” Selah repeated. “Mush?”

  As the mush simmered, frying bacon commenced. Curling her nose, Watseka eyed the pork with suspicion. Was sweetening shunned as well? Selah took out the Caribbean sugar and put a bit on Watseka’s tongue, a wide smile her reward. One front tooth was missing, giving Watseka a slightly lopsided look.

  Candace came in, making much of their little charge. “Well, I see all is in order. Watseka proves a great help in the kitchen.” She moved to where an apron hung on a wall peg. “I fear your father did not sleep a wink last night due to his coughing, which surely kept those of you upstairs awake as well.”

  “Nay,” Xander assured her as he stepped into the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry to hear Father is no better.” Selah began ladling steaming mush into bowls while Watseka set out spoons. “I shall tend the store today. Thankfully, only churning the butter and making small beer remain for Izella. The other chores are mostly done, thanks be to Xander.”

  “A far cry from your usual duties.” Candace looked at him fondly as he seated himself and took a first bite. “We don’t mean to keep you any longer, though we do appreciate your help.”

  “I can carry Selah to the store on my way to Rose-n-Vale,” he replied, reaching for the bacon.

  “No need.” Selah took her place, at war within herself once again. “The store isn’t far yet is a bit out of your way.”

  “As you wish,” he replied quietly, winking at Watseka as she added more sweetening atop her mush.

  Seeing the exchange, Selah let her heart have its say. “On second thought . . .”

  Xander looked at her in question.

  Heat filled her from head to toe at her sudden reversal. “A ride would be a fine thing, thank you.”

  A beat of amusement crossed his face as he began speaking in Watseka’s tongue, leaving her giggling more than eating. He took a small piece of bacon and fed it to the pup, who wagged without ceasing at their feet.

  Still giggling, Watseka responded with a veritable volley of musical words.

  “Her pup is to be called Kentke,” Xander told them. “‘He dances.’”

  “Oh?” Delighted, Selah tried out the strange word much as she’d done supawn. “Kentke.”

  “The pup certainly does dance, for he never stops his wiggling.” Candace rose at the sound of Ustis’s hoarse voice from the bedchamber. “If you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Finished with breakfast, Xander murmured something to Watseka, which led to her helping clear the table. When he wandered outside, Selah felt the void before she realized he’d gone. But he was not far, just beyond the door, and would soon carry her to the store.

  Blowing out a little sigh, which caused Watseka to look her way, Selah hung the kettle over the flames and prepared her father’s tonic. Lord willing, she’d serve Xander no more nays and excuses. For once her heart would trump her head and curb her reason.

  22

  From atop Xander’s horse, the view of the river and surrounding countryside was sublime. Xander pointed out various things only a true native would know, making the distance to the warehouse and wharf lamentably short. Crates and hogsheads lay about, some empty, some still full of wares. Faced with all that still needed doing, Selah all but mumbled an apology. There simply weren’t enough hands, Shay’s foremost. Already the wharf was lined with watercraft, the bridle path along the shore muddied with those approaching to buy, barter, or trade.

  “Your work is cut out for you this day.” Sliding to the ground, Xander helped her down and hobbled Lancelot. “I’ll do what I can, though I am no cape merchant.”

  “You’ll do plenty.” His steadying presence bolstered her as she unlocked the back door with the keys her father had given her. “I rather like these joint endeavors.”

  Once she found the scales, Xander opened the front entrance to the men living on outlying Hundreds, most vaguely familiar to her but better known to him. He greeted them all by name and a handshake, inquiring after their welfare and their families, making introductions when needed.

  And she thought James Towne was busy.

  The forenoon found her buried in tobacco r
eceipts but scant coin. And then came a blessed lull. Securing the coin in a metal box, Selah looked up to see Xander at counter’s end.

  “Needs be I return home,” he told her.

  She nodded, so grateful for his help a mere thank-you seemed inadequate. Crossing to where he stood, she reached for his hand and gave it a heartfelt squeeze. “You’re a fine man, Xander Renick.”

  He laced her fingers in his, drawing her closer until she was in the sanctuary of his arms. Held so, her cheek against his chest, his heartbeat rhythmic and enduring beneath her ear, she felt . . . sheltered. Safeguarded amid their tenuous circumstances.

  “Here and now, Selah, I declare my intentions to you.” His whispered words were warm against her temple. “I would have you as my bride, the mistress of Rose-n-Vale, if you decide that is what and where you want to be.”

  Her heart welled and then her eyes. Her arms stole around his waist, anchoring him to her, giving him a half answer. When he cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head back to look up at him, she felt little more than a puddle at his boots.

  “’Twould be wise, if you’re to help manage in your father’s absence, to let Watseka accompany you some days. Consider a shop boy. In the meantime, if you or your kin need anything at all, send for me.” Reaching up, he lifted that same stray tendril and tucked it into her coif.

  The longing in his gaze—did it mirror her own? She still had hold of his waist, though a niggle of impropriety bade her release him. Ignoring it, in a show of surrender she stood shamelessly on tiptoe, all but asking him to kiss her.

  Begging.

  With a chuckle deep in his throat, he brushed her forehead with his lips in a maddeningly gallant gesture. For a widower having tasted the fruits of marriage, he was a marvel of restraint. “I will not give you what you are yet unsure of, thus forming a bond between us that might well break.”

  Closing her eyes again, she let the moment be what it was. Cherished the tense, excruciatingly sweet tie that begged strengthening.

  “Fare thee well, Selah.”

  He rode off, his horse’s hoofbeats once again no match for her thudding heart.

  He’d stated his intentions toward Selah. Spent the night beneath the Hopewells’ roof. Nearly kissed her during those last heady moments alone in the warehouse. Yet he’d withheld the promise she’d not be a tobacco widow. How could he do otherwise when years of toil and ever-extending territory drove him still?

  Now, three days hence, he contemplated telling her the truth about his and Mattachanna’s tangled relationship. Settle her insecurities that the memory she feared they trod upon was not what it seemed, but far more intricate and buried grave deep. Share the secret that no amount of labor and sweat or success could temper.

  Such was uppermost in his mind as he inspected his tobacco fields, judging the quality and vigor of this year’s crop, which was nearing harvest. A crop that should have left him elated. No Orinoco yet had yielded so well, the color a coveted greenish-gold. England was now importing over a million pounds of leaf, Rose-n-Vale’s the leading export. Still, there was little rest, a host of unseen challenges to come, a never-ending list of goods gotten and debts settled both here and in the Old World . . .

  Hardly time for a new bride, a returned child, and an unknown nurse.

  He rode on till he came to his maize, the tasseling stalks blocking his view. Here at the cornfield’s heart with the gourdseed variety topping eighteen feet, not a leaf stirred, turning his shirt sodden before he’d escaped its suffocating grip. Planted in nearly as many acres as his tobacco, it promised food and forage for a lean winter, of which they’d had many.

  He rode on, drawn to a haunting spot on the edges of Renick land. Time had turned it nearly unrecognizable save the stones and wooden crosses that marked two graves. What he’d give to have Henry Renick here to ken firsthand that his stake in the New World hadn’t been in vain. His father had lived barely the three years required to receive the lion’s share of land grants awarded those first settlers. And Xander had been with the Powhatans for most of it.

  His beloved mother, pale like Selah, had been an uncommon woman, a tower of health and strength whose pride was her only son, his success the joy of her heart. But now? At five and thirty, past the prime of life, he’d best be concerned about more than tobacco, as Selah said. Build memories with those he loved rather than simply add another wing to Rose-n-Vale.

  “Good day to ye, sir.”

  A voice pulled him back to the present. Another of his farm managers stood by a long chain of scaffolding used to air the cut tobacco.

  “We’ve finished the drying racks ahead of the harvest, as ye ken. But with so many men fevered, progress has slowed on the packing and prizing house.”

  “How many are down?”

  “Thirteen, mostly new arrivals.”

  “Needs be we sun-cure more than fire-cure the leaf, then.” His indentures, most of them the heartiest of Scots, didn’t shirk work. His concern was their working when ill, sickening further and sometimes dying. “Another five and twenty men are coming. Though they’re inexperienced, if we train them properly they might suffice and let the ailing men recover.”

  Yet Xander well knew the promise of a ship was but a dream till it docked. More than a few had been lost at sea or intercepted by Spaniards.

  “We’re ready to house them, sir.”

  “You’ve done well overseeing their new quarters. Is the roof finished?”

  “Just this morn, aye.” The man took a long drink from his flask. “Another matter, sir. The slave traders have been by again. Wanted to part with a dozen or so Africans. Said they ken our need.”

  Xander shifted in the saddle, struck by the plea to reconsider in the manager’s beleaguered face. “I’ll not sell my soul to own another’s. Not even if it means saving the harvest.”

  “I won’t mention it again, sir. The Africans were sold to the Frenchman instead. He’s begun work on the land east of ye.”

  Laurent. The physic turned planter. The would-be wooer of Selah Hopewell. And now his neighbor. Looking toward the land in question, Xander schooled his reaction to the news, tantamount to a kick in the gut.

  “Prepare to harvest by mid-August. Mayhap the ailing men will be recovered by then. I’ll make the rounds and see if more medicines are needed from the apothecary. There’s an able physic at Mount Malady I’ll send for.”

  “Bethankit, sir.”

  The man rode off, and Xander turned in the direction of the indentures’ quarters, a scattering of mud-and-daub dwellings with a rutted lane betwixt them. Only a few had wives and children and required a separate house. Virginia’s woeful lack of women was an ongoing lament, as was the law that forbade these bound men to marry without his permission. Another brides’ ship was needed. But even a dozen of them wouldn’t be enough.

  The sun bore down blisteringly, surely adding to the ailing men’s fevered misery. He’d lost count of the indentures overcome by disease. Though he made sure their provisions were ample, their quarters orderly and clean, they still succumbed. Wives would help remedy that. Children would give them something to live for. Many of them were homesick, longing for the familiar. They’d not had the benefit—or the scourge—of being born here.

  One of the women met him as he dismounted at the end of the lane. Her worn features beneath a soiled coif bespoke little sleep and trying to do for too many men. Was she also ill?

  “Are ye well, kind sir?”

  “Well enough, Goodwife McTulloch. And you? Your husband?”

  “I’m middlin’, but my man’s poorly. A great many men are ailin’. ’Tis a wonder ye stay standin’ in this heat.”

  “When you’re born to it, it doesn’t wear on you so badly.” He removed his hat, the barest skim of breeze riffling his damp hair. “Expect a physic and more medicines from Mount Malady. And a quantity of fresh fruit from the Summer Isles on the morrow, if you and Goody Allen could distribute it.”

  Her flushed fac
e bespoke relief. “Ye look well t’ the health of yer men, ye do.” She gave him a last, searching look. “Prayers for yer own health, sir. A wee bit shilpit t’ my eye, if ye dinna mind me sayin’ so.”

  Shilpit?

  Though his Scots was rusty, he knew the word well enough and supposed he did look a bit haggard given the season. Bidding her good day, he started for the first building on the road—the barracks, he called it—hosting the bulk of the unmarried men. Even from a distance the stench of illness and overused chamber pots called a warning. Bracing himself, he let himself in after a loud knock.

  A murmur of respectful greetings sounded from all corners. He stood in the room’s center so he could be heard by all. “It grieves me to see you suffer, some of you not even on Virginia soil a fortnight. I’ve relief coming in the form of fresh foods and medicines. A physic should arrive shortly. An itinerant preacher is also making the rounds. Bring any other needs to the attention of Hosea Sterrett, who’ll relay the matter to me. I’ll return again soon to see how you’re faring.”

  He went from house to house, taking stock of anything else that needed addressing in addition to the ailing men. A decrepit roof. A dry well. More fence posts for gardens and livestock.

  Xander was admired—and mocked—for his treatment of his indentures and his refusal to own Africans. Let a man work the land in exchange for his ship’s passage and soil of his own in a few years’ time. That he understood. But let no man be owned by another with no hope of ever being free.

  Late afternoon, he’d finished his rounds and returned home another way, skirting the very boundary stones between Renick land, the Hopewells’, and now Laurent’s. How the physic had come by such prime acreage he didn’t know, but his hackles rose at the mere thought.

  Not a soul was in sight—not even the Africans Laurent was said to now own—just rolling hills awaiting twilight, a few trees along a watercourse breaking up the summery landscape. Xander loosened his hold on the reins and looked toward the river. There seemed a special poignancy to the dwindling day as it took a final breath. A subtle yearning that called for Selah by his side.