Leslie LaFoy (49 page)

They did, though, stopping just inside the door. Reverend Graves glanced about the interior. “Have you given your servant a holiday?” he asked, stepping behind Cornelia and divesting her of her shawl.

“Ephram isn't my servant,” Claire explained, tossing her own shawl over the back of a chair. “He was my husband's business manager and accompanied me on my journey back to England. He saw me safely settled here and then returned to London. He's accepted employment with a bookkeeping firm there.”

“Your husband didn't accompany you himself?”

She heard the condemnation in his voice, and the spark flickered into a flame. “Circumstances made that impossible,” she supplied tightly, unwilling to dignify his presumption with a detailed explanation, unwilling to share her life with Devon with anyone outside it. “Won't you come to the table?” Again she turned and led the way. Only this time her earlier ambivalence was gone; she hoped that the minister and his wife would decide not to follow.

“Your own circumstances have been quite extraordinary,” said a soft, tremulous voice from behind her. “I've been following the tales avidly.”

Claire stopped in her tracks. Good God, Cornelia Graves had not only spoken, but actually uttered two complete sentences. Hoping to encourage the unusual show of bravery, Claire turned and asked with a smile, “What tales have you heard, Cornelia?”

Cornelia blanched beneath her husband's withering
look and dropped her gaze to the floor. Claire clenched her teeth as Reverend Graves replied, “Women have always been weak to temptation. Satan offers many apples. Of which gossip is only one.”

That damned apple. And always the weakness of women. Poor Cornelia. To be interested in something beyond the narrow world of Crossbridge and rebuked for it… It wasn't fair and it wasn't right. And she wasn't going to let it pass unchallenged. “Tell me something, Reverend. Is it considered a sin to speak the truth?”

“Of course not,” Graves replied, seating his wife at the table. “God demands that we speak the truth in all things.”

“Good.” Lifting the covers from the food, she said brightly, “Cornelia, let me tell you the truth of what's happened to me in the last few months. It has indeed been extraordinary. As I'm sure you've heard, my uncle has long been engaged in cheating the Crown and made me a party to his crimes. When the King's ministers discovered his perfidy, they moved to bring an indictment against him and sought my testimony to that end.”

The woman glanced up for only a scant second, but it was long enough for Claire to see the silent plea for her to continue. Claire smiled, seated herself, ignored the reverend's scowl, and obliged. “I imagine that it's at this point that the story's become a bit blurred for everyone. I doubt that it's been exaggerated, though. It would be extremely difficult to make the tale any more harrowing or horrific than it was. You see, my uncle, in trying to prevent my giving testimony and evidence against him, contracted to have me murdered in a place and under circumstances that would cast suspicion in a direction far removed from himself.”

Claire paused, considering the road she'd traveled and realizing that she'd never before attempted to put into words those days, those events and how deeply they'd affected her. In that place deep within her where
the flame flickered, the warmth of it intensified and began to gently thrum.

“To that end,” she continued, both strengthened and unsettled by the sensation, “my uncle forced me into a marriage with a stranger, an American farmer, a decent, caring, intelligent man who didn't hold my uncle's scheming against me. A man whose brother was assigned the gruesome task of disposing of me. His brother and my uncle failed only because of the brave actions and hard choices my husband was willing to make in order to protect me. He paid a high price for his devotion to me. A devotion he had no reason to offer and every reason to withhold. I owe him my life many times over.”

Bits and pieces of memories flitted through her mind, blessedly fractured. Darice. Elsbeth. Wyndom. Meg and Hannah and Edmund. Mother Rivard. And Devon. The sadness in his eyes as he'd stood on the dock at James City, the hardness of his jaw as he'd told her farewell. The longing and tenderness in his final kiss.

And suddenly the numbness surrounding her heart shattered, and the soul-deep ache of that moment came flooding back over her. She closed her eyes, welcoming it as proof that she could still feel, struggling to bear with dignity the overwhelming sense of loss that came in its wake. Unwilling to lose her composure and embarrass the reverend and his wife, Claire seized a deep breath, willed a smile onto her face and dispassionate words from her tongue.

“I didn't want to leave him, but he insisted that I respect the rule of law and fulfill my duty to the court. And so I left the colonies and returned to England to render my testimony before the grand jury. I understand that the indictment has already been handed down and that my uncle has been arrested. I'll be required to testify against him in the trial, of course. The Crown has given me two weeks to return to London.”

“Will your husband be joining you there?” Cornelia asked softly, seemingly oblivious to her own husband's disapproving frown.

God, how deeply she wanted to see Devon, to be in his arms again. How deeply it hurt to know that it wasn't at all likely to happen. “I rather doubt it,” she forced herself to say around the thickening in her throat. “He has great responsibilities to attend to in the colonies.”

“Will you be returning to him after the trial? Or will you be coming home to Crossbridge?”

“Home,” Claire admitted sadly, “seems to be something I've lately found difficult to identify. I find myself torn between two shores.”

“It would appear that you escaped that wretched American shore just in time,” Graves intoned. “God obviously had a hand in bringing you back to England. In time and with guidance, you will undoubtedly come to appreciate His infinite wisdom.”

Claire stared at him blankly. “Wretched? I don't think of America in that manner at all.”

“Then you haven't heard about recent developments in the American colonies.”

Her heart lurched upward. “Apparently not,” she heard herself say over the rapid clicking of her thoughts. Devon had said that they were on the brink of war, that Virginia would send out a call for all the colonies to send delegations to a meeting at the end of summer.

“Let us bless this food and thank the good Lord for your timely rescue.”

She nodded absently, and while the reverend and his wife bowed their heads, she gazed at the leaves outside. It was the beginning of October now, and if they'd met when Devon had said they would… Time enough to declare war, time enough for word of it to have reached London. The drone of the minister's voice ended, and she offered up a quiet “Amen” for it.

Picking up the platter of meats and cheeses, Claire held it out for Graves and, with a wholly feigned nonchalance, said, “You were about to tell me what's happened in the colonies.”

“I was in London just five days ago for a meeting of church elders,” he said while helping himself to generous portions, “and I had occasion to read for myself the reports in the London papers. The American colonists have fallen into the depths of utter stupidity. The consequence of which will be the full wrath and power of His Majesty's Royal Army and Navy being brought down upon them.”

Her heart tripped even as she told herself that she wouldn't panic, wouldn't assume the worst. As she presented the platter to Cornelia, she pressed for more information. “Might I ask you to be a bit more specific as to what they've done that's so appalling?”

“They have met in an illegal assembly and authored some bit of rubbish they call the Declaration and Resolutions of the Continental Congress. In this document, they whine and carry on concerning legitimate acts of Parliament and declare themselves above the law and absolved of obedience.”

Claire expelled the breath she'd been holding. Not a declaration of war. Light-headed with relief, she blindly filled her own plate and then, with a trembling hand, reached for her glass of white wine. She should have known they wouldn't have acted so rashly. Devon was resolved to fight a war if he had no other choice, but he didn't
want
war.

“And then,” Graves went on as she sipped, “in a pathetically empty gesture of defiance, they vow to cease all trade with us until our blessed King George grovels for their forgiveness.”

Empty gesture? Devon never made empty gestures. He never made a threat, either; he made promises that he always saw through to the bitter end. Claire smiled.

Except for the matter of her breeches and boots. That contest he'd conceded. But her wearing breeches and boots was a world apart from the conflict arising between the colonies and England. On those issues, Devon would never yield.

Reverend Graves snorted and snatched up the crystal jar of ground mustard. All but flinging a spoonful of the stuff onto his plate, he added, “They won't last through the winter without the materials we supply them. They cannot survive without the might of Britain to defend and support them. And—should they go so far as to commit actual treason and take up arms—they certainly won't be able to stand against the mightiest military power in the history of the world.”

Claire thought of the stores at Rosewind, of the women at the Raleigh Tavern and all that they'd been so instantly willing to send for the support of Boston.

“I respectfully beg to differ with you, sir,” she said quietly, studying the pale color of her wine. “Unless the Crown has wanted the coins out of their pockets, the colonies have been largely ignored. Because of that neglect, they've learned to make their own way and to take care of themselves. Their lives are entirely sustainable without England's assistance. And while it remains to be seen whether they can emerge victorious in any military contest with Great Britain, I can assure you that if they choose to take up arms, they'll fight until the last man falls.”

“Then they're pitiful fools.”

With a sigh, she shook her head and said, “Forgive my bluntness, Reverend, but you know nothing of the American colonists. I've been there. I've lived among them. I can assure you that, by and large, they're a thoughtful, well-educated, and very deliberate people.”

“Any man, any people,” he shot back, “who oppose the rule of law and the authority of our King and
Parliament are fools. And not just fools, Madam Rivard, but also an ungrateful scourge that must be eradicated from our kingdom lest it infect and rot from within the tradition and tenets of common law.”

Anger surged through her. “And for what should they be grateful?” she demanded. “That they're being taxed into poverty and ruin? That they've been denied the most fundamental right of Englishmen, the right to representation in Parliament and a voice in the formulation of the laws that govern them? That their freedoms are being stripped from them?”

Graves sardonically observed, “It would seem that there is something in colonial air which is contagious.”

“Perhaps there is,” she admitted, ignoring Cornelia's frightened look. “I can't help but admire them for being an incredibly resilient, independent people, sir. They've carved their existence out of the land by their own efforts and freely, gladly contributed the fruits of their labors to England's glory and power. They've asked only to live in peace, to enjoy the bounty they've worked so hard to attain, and to have their considerable contributions to the empire respected and rewarded by representation in Parliament. They've given much and asked for very little in return.

“The same can't be said for the King and his advisors. They give little and demand everything the colonists have won for themselves. And not for need, either, Reverend. But simply because the Crown believes it has the right to take what it pleases from whom it pleases when it pleases to spend as it pleases.”

Graves glowered at her and, beside him, Cornelia cowered and shrunk into herself. “And it will please the Crown to no end when—at the sight of our power bearing down upon them—the seditious vermin turn tail and run.”

“They're not going to run. I know my husband and
his fellows. If the King and his advisors refuse to address the concerns expressed in their most recent declaration, then the Americans will pronounce themselves a free nation. They have nothing to lose in fighting for their principles.”

“Principles mean nothing when cities are smoldering rubble and people are starving.”

“Understand this, Reverend. The Americans are a very different breed of people. They consider it a sacred duty to serve Right and the principles of freedom. The English talk of liberty and the rights of free men. The Americans live it. Freedom is more precious to them than peace, more precious than life itself. If England doesn't now understand that about her American colonists, they'll soon teach her.”

Through gritted teeth, he retorted, “And we will teach them humility.”

She tried to picture Devon on bended knee, his head bowed. “Never, sir,” she replied with a short laugh. “They know what they've accomplished and against what odds. Great achievement doesn't lead to humility.”

“Then they will leave us no choice but to destroy them.”

Destroy Devon? Destroy Rosewind? Not as long as there was breath in her body. Claire met the reverend's gaze for a long moment before she replied solemnly, “Should England have the sorry misjudgment to make war on her own people, it won't be the first grave hardship visited upon the Americans. One of the most fascinating and wonderful things about them is their ability to see the opportunity that lies on the other side of a great misfortune. You can tear down their cities, burn their farms and plantations to the ground, and they will turn to their fellows and happily say, ‘Now we can build something else, something even better than before.’ They're an utterly undauntable people. They believe in
themselves and in their ability to forge a tomorrow of their dreams. Try as England might, she will
never
destroy that.”

“God is always on England's side.”

“God, Reverend, is always on the side of right. And in the treatment of the Americans, England is not right. She's absolutely, blindly, stupidly wrong. And I, for one, will not stand by and permit the Americans to be wronged. To do so would be unconscionable.”