Tidewater Bride

by Laura Frantz

  He dismounted behind the garden. Almost immediately, Ruby and Jett bounded to his side. There, through the smoke and melee, he saw Selah and her stricken mother. His aunt stood beside them near the summer kitchen as the flames advanced uphill toward the house. All was summer scorched, so dry that sparks exploded and crackled. Selah grabbed up a blanket and raced downhill toward a burning wheelbarrow as if intent on smothering it.

  He followed on foot, overtaking her easily, and wrested the blanket from her arms. His eyes fell on her bandages, a dozen questions clamoring. “You’re hurt. From the fire?”

  She stared at him through bloodshot eyes, her face so drawn he knew at once something else haunted her. “There’s no time for explanations—do what you must to save this place!”

  He took her hand when what he wanted was to take her in his arms. “Stay far from the fire, Selah. I’ll not see our future go up in smoke like the rest of Rose-n-Vale. There’s precious little to be done but attempt to save the house. Keep near my aunt. We shall talk soon enough.”

  She nodded, turning away, her wounded arm drawn to her chest.

  As he worked with the indentures to hedge the encroaching fire, he prayed for the wind to abate. Till it calmed there was no accounting the damage.

  “Renick!” McCaskey came alongside him, emptying a bucket on the charred grass at their feet. “Thank heaven yer back. But ye’ve returned to a maelstrom, this fire being but one of several grievous matters.”

  Xander emptied his own bucket, and they returned to the bubbling spring that cooled the milk house. “What means you?”

  His factor swiped sweat and soot from his brow with a dash of his sleeve. “Ustis Hopewell lies buried, and the Indian girl who lived with them has gone missing. And now this.”

  The dire details poured forth, making the scorching all around them fade. Ustis dead? The news left him feeling gut shot. And Watseka . . . missing? He stared unseeing as the fire licked closer. What was property—even tobacco—compared to loss of life and a peace child unaccounted for?

  Choking on the smoke, Xander drew more water, his mind careening, hardly aware of what he did.

  “There’s naught to be done but wait,” McCaskey told him. “We cannot even ride to inspect the damage without doing further damage to our horses and ourselves.”

  “Best surround the house then. Wet down the grass. The stables are secured, are they not? The horses removed to safer ground?” Xander listened for answers even though his gaze never settled, probing the smoke and the forms of those who rushed back and forth atop the rise.

  “Aye, the horses are secure. Now best be thinking who is to blame.”

  “Not lightning from the latest storm.”

  “Nay. ’Twas deliberate. I am sure of it. Someone knew ye were away and wasted no time devising all manner of mischief, starting with the Indian girl.”

  McCaskey’s plain speaking had never been more appreciated. A wave of smoke billowed between them, acrid and menacing.

  “Pray for rain,” Xander shouted to any near enough to hear. He left McCaskey to oversee the containment of the fire, which was thwarted in its uphill trek from the west by nearly a hundred men. Reeking of smoke and sweat and now blackened with soot, he approached Selah as she stood on the portico with the women.

  “Alexander, you look a fright, but never have I been so glad to see you.” His aunt embraced him, her white coif and apron singed with sparks. As if sensing his intent to speak with Selah alone, the other women went inside, coughing all the way.

  Placing a hand at Selah’s back, he urged her inside as well, into the somewhat cleaner air of his study and an almost hallowed quiet. This was not the homecoming he’d anticipated, and he knew she felt the same. She sat by a closed window without saying a word, eyes on him, hands fisted in her aproned lap.

  He groped for composure as he sat beside her. “I have no words regarding your father.”

  The sheen returned to her eyes. “’Twas no secret he was unwell. But one is never ready when death comes.”

  He swallowed hard, throat so parched it thinned his voice to a rasp. “Tell me what you believe happened to Watseka. But first, what of your arm?”

  The story poured forth, leaving him stunned and disbelieving.

  “So, the sheriff and his men refused to form a search party.” The ire he’d felt upon first hearing it was barely banked as Selah nodded in confirmation. “For the life of me, with peace hanging in the balance, I cannot fathom why they would not at least attempt one. They blamed it on the harvest? Other matters? Such doesn’t ring true to me.”

  “Nor me.”

  Xander tried to track the details in his benumbed brain as they talked. “How is your mother?”

  “Strong in spirit. To her credit, she carries on, knowing she’ll join Father in time.”

  “He lies at James Towne church?”

  At her aye, Xander settled another matter. Without Ustis or another male presence, the women couldn’t be at Hopewell Hundred. A musketeer meant little. “You and your household will stay here for the time being. I’ll get no sleep tonight, but the thought of you near would hearten me.”

  “Where is Oceanus?”

  “With the Powhatans.” Restless, he stood and looked out the window ahead of returning outside. “His grandfather the chief has asked he stay on till late autumn.”

  “Better he be away at such a tumultuous time. And with Watseka gone . . .” She stood and faced him. “Glad I am Shay is away too. He’ll take Father’s death hard once he hears, but I’m relieved he was spared the spectacle of him passing that frantic morn.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders, wanting to hold her close but for his bedraggled state. “Go upstairs to my bedchamber and rest.” He half expected her to argue, to exert the will of old. “A maid will bring hot water for a bath.”

  Visibly relieved, Selah gave him a half smile. “I’m no good to anyone, tired as I am. And now I’m to have a look at your lair.”

  Despite it all, he chuckled. “Sleep will help you regain the use of your wounded arm. In the meantime, I’m in need of one of Watseka’s garments. I trust you have something of hers at the house. Something that would let Jett track her.”

  “In my upstairs bedchamber, aye.”

  “I’ll send someone, then.”

  Up Rose-n-Vale’s staircase they went, Widow Brodie leading her to Xander’s bedchamber before leaving to retrieve a suitable nightgown. Selah stood on the threshold, breathing in her beloved’s very essence, a rich comingling of leather and linen, Castile soap and ambergris. The spacious room was a feast for the eyes. Sumptuous by Virginia standards. A heady moment for one raised in an austere household. The intimacy of staying here was one step away from matrimony. Was that where all this was leading? Why did she feel like naught but a trespasser?

  A maid brought buckets of water, filling a copper hip bath hidden behind a paneled leather screen. Selah’s wound needed cleaning, so the bath was especially timely, though it required her to grit her teeth to manage it. That done, she rested her arm along the tub’s rim and leaned back. As she’d been unable to snatch more than a few hours of sleep since her father’s passing, she nearly dozed off in the tepid water. But the frequency of men’s shouts, the beat of horses’ hooves, and the sudden, shocking drone of rain roused her.

  Rain. An answered prayer. She stepped out of the tub, toweled dry, and donned the borrowed nightgown, light-headedness landing her in the nearest chair. When had she last eaten? Before she could recall, there came a knock and Widow Brodie appeared with supper.

  “God be praised! Just as I was leaving the summer kitchen, the heavens opened!” She set a sodden tray on a small table. “I shan’t complain, and I suppose you shan’t either, if the bread be damp.”

  Selah managed a smile. “All I care about is Xander’s safe return home and that Watseka be found.”

  “Lord willing, we shall soon have her among us.” With capable hands Widow Brodie went about pouring steaming di
ttany tea into a cup, while Selah eyed the bowl of sugared nuts beside a pewter plate heaped with sliced apples, cheese, and buttered bread.

  Famished, she bent her head and murmured grace before her hostess even left the room. As she ate, wind-whipped rain buffeted the leaded panes and freshened the air, promising the fire had met its end. At least the house was spared. Though she itched to look out the window before the last of daylight faded, she feared what she would find.

  She darted a glance at the canopied bed, turned down and waiting. The masculine chamber seemed more guest room, not even a dust mote in evidence. Without rising from the chair, she began acquainting herself with the contents of this unfamiliar lion’s den. Twin tapestried chairs. A bathing cabinet. Silver candlesnuffers atop a low table. A massive wardrobe commanding an entire wall. On the mantel was a pair of porcelain dogs reminiscent of Ruby and Jett, alongside an overflowing vase of August blooms.

  From the very garden where he’d kissed her.

  Wooziness and weariness collided. Unable to keep herself upright any longer, Selah climbed the bed steps to lie atop not one but five feather ticks. Obviously, Rose-n-Vale’s master liked his bedding soft, same as she. Lying back atop a bank of pillows, she was beginning another prayer for Watseka when sleep overtook her.

  37

  The damage done to his tobacco, fields, and barns was beyond calculating. But the main house was spared, and all within it. None of his indentures had been hurt aside from minor burns. For now, Xander’s every thought belonged to Watseka. He set about gathering a search party of determined if worn men just before midnight. He’d not wait till morn.

  McCaskey, not wanting to remain behind, insisted he accompany them, leaving the charred plantation to farm managers. Xander assented, looking over the soot-stained, red-eyed lot of them. Only Ruby and Jett seemed up to the task, ever spirited, only settling when Watseka’s garments appeared. They sniffed thoughtfully, able to follow a scent on the air and the ground.

  “Can they search after a soaking rain?” McCaskey questioned.

  “Most assuredly,” Xander replied. He had little doubt his hounds, equipped with harness and tracking lines, were up to the arduous task. His only doubt was if Watseka would be found alive. The sobering thought lined his soul with lead.

  They began at the Hopewells’, the last place Watseka had been that fateful night. As they stood before the empty house, the musketeer gone, there was a hushed, weighty silence as Xander bent his head and prayed for wisdom and direction.

  In the light of pitch-pine torches, the hunt began. Xander was tossed between hope and dread with every step they took, by turns yanked and at a standstill as the hounds sniffed and searched, noses to the ground and then the air. Their extraordinary powers were fueled by more silent prayers. The men fanned out around them, some on horseback and others afoot, all eyes on the landscape as they followed the dogs’ leading.

  Why was he not surprised when the scent led toward Laurent’s land?

  The closer they came, the darker his thoughts grew. With the physic’s dim regard of the Naturals and how snug he was with Governor Harvey, the matter would likely never be investigated even if harm had been done the girl. Just as Xander knew to his core that the Naturals would respond to such a heinous crime against a peace child by retaliating in kind.

  Why did he feel even now he was walking toward his own demise? Could evil be felt? Aye, it could, as every fiber of his being urged him to turn back. To retreat. Was he putting the search party in harm’s way?

  Evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

  Unbidden, the timely Scripture assuaged the ragged parts of him. He halted the party at the boundary stone of Laurent land. “I need but one man with me. The rest of you wait here. Put out your lights or seek cover where you can’t be seen.”

  “I shall shadow you,” McCaskey said.

  There was no argument. All sensed the risk. Coupled with the utter darkness, even a sliver of moon denied them, the night turned more menacing, even haunting. The dogs, till now stealthy and quiet, reached fever’s pitch, straining at their tethers, clearly growing closer to whatever was riveting them.

  As McCaskey watched, Xander turned Jett loose.

  “Is that wise?” the factor murmured.

  “If he finds Watseka, he’ll return and lead us to her.”

  “Aye. But not Ruby?”

  “Jett is the keenest tracker and rarely goes wrong.” Xander pitched his voice low, eyes on Jett as he disappeared into the darkness. “If we encounter anything threatening in the meantime, Ruby will protect us.”

  Understanding dawned on the factor’s sun-weathered face. He cast a look back at the men fading into the woods to wait, no longer visible save a few flickering lights. Ruby led them on, nose to the ground. Soon they would come to Laurent’s dwelling, a rough-hewn blend of wattle and daub with a thatch roof, a far cry from his framed-timber rowhouse in James Towne. But first they passed by the rude hovels of his Africans.

  Again, Xander’s hackles rose. The stench of their quarters was like a fetid wall. Denied even the simple right of bathing as well as eating? Even a privy pit?

  A sudden movement to the left halted them, Ruby poised like a statue. The night watch? A lantern flared some twenty yards distant. Holding it aloft was a gaunt African, eyes huge in his bony face. Fearful. Questioning. One of Laurent’s slaves.

  “We mean you no harm,” Xander reassured him. “’Tis a lost Indian girl we seek.”

  A burst of gibberish followed, likely Angolan. Slavers oft went to the slave-trade port of Luanda. Laurent’s Africans knew little if any English, being so new to Virginia.

  “He looks so weak he can barely stand.” McCaskey spat into the grass. “God help the Indian girl if she is indeed here.”

  At their approach the man sank to his knees, his lantern casting pale light on the wet grass. McCaskey pulled him to his feet. Sunken eyes on Xander, the man gestured to his mouth and then his belly.

  McCaskey released his hold on him. “I believe he may be your smokehouse thief and believes you’ve come to whip or hang him.”

  “Aye. He’s too afraid to be merely hungry.” Pity overrode Xander’s exhaustion. “I simply wish he understood our mission.”

  The cords in the man’s neck constricted as he swallowed. He began backing up as a rustle to their right drew their attention. Jett emerged, attention on Xander. Without a word, Xander stepped in the hound’s direction and they started west, still in pitch darkness save the torch, leaving the night watch behind and moving nearer Laurent’s own dwelling.

  Xander braced himself for the confrontation to come. The pistol at his waist was a dire reminder of the course the night might well take. When Jett gave a short, shrill bark nearer the house and a moving light shone from inside, Xander faced the main doorway, McCaskey just behind him.

  Laurent all but spilled out the entrance, whether muddled by sleep or spirits Xander did not know. The answer was in his aggravated, slightly slurred voice.

  “Who goes there? Renick, is that you, you rakefire? Trespassing in the dead of night?”

  Xander held fast to Ruby’s lead. “Aye, and I’ll not leave till I have answers, even if I have to search every inch of your acreage.”

  Laurent cursed and came nearer. “Is that your foul factor with you? Zounds! A pox on the both of you! I’ll have you hauled before all James Towne—”

  “Step aside while I search your dwelling.” Xander wasted no more time. “As commander of this shire, ’tis my right.”

  “You’ll take no such liberties—” Laurent lunged toward Xander, but McCaskey intervened with a swift shove, cutting him off in midsentence besides.

  “Ye muckspout!” McCaskey held the light nearer Laurent. “’Twas ye I saw riding near the Hopewells’ the morn the Indian girl disappeared. What say ye to that?”

  Laurent lunged again, but McCaskey dodged him with a low laugh. Leaving Ruby behind, Xander grab
bed the factor’s light and gained the house behind Jett, passing through the door Laurent had left open. Here disorder reigned. Everywhere he looked were piles of goods, the four rooms with their connecting doors more a narrow maze that a heavyset man could not manage.

  “Watseka, are you here?” he shouted in Powhatan.

  He listened hard as Jett moved around the clutter, leading him upstairs to two chambers. The distaste Xander felt upon entering Laurent’s private quarters soured his stomach. The tousled bed. A stash of brandy and a silver brandy bowl. Medicines and bottles. But Watseka was not here, despite Jett’s earlier agitation, though she might well be buried beneath the mess.

  Jett gave a low whine near an empty cupboard before leading him downstairs again. Had Watseka been brought here at some point?

  Outside, McCaskey and Laurent were exchanging heated words if not blows. Ruby was between them, ready to take down Laurent if the need arose. Laurent, if memory served, disdained dogs.

  “I shall report you to the authorities come morning, Renick!” The threat lent no backbone to his slurred words. “No man—not even the shire’s commander—has the right to storm another man’s home and property without a warrant or assent from the sheriff.”

  “Do what you will. Till we find Watseka, we shan’t stop our search, with or without consent.”

  “Watseka, is it? Your heathenish bent has no bounds. I’ve no doubt you are a Powhatan spy.”

  “Stop yer blabbering.” McCaskey spat as Xander began to walk away. “Yer in need of a scold’s helm to tame yer blasted tongue, though I’m hoping it’s the gallows for ye after what ye’ve done.”

  With a roar like a wounded bull, Laurent charged, ramming McCaskey square in his middle. Down the two went in an explosion of punching and grunting, setting the dogs to barking and the rest of the search party running.

  At Xander’s bidding, two of his heaviest indentures intervened and separated the brawlers. Undaunted, the dogs continued nosing the ground between them till Jett began to sniff Laurent’s muddied breeches.