Love in Three-Quarter Time (20 page)

CHAPTER 28

“I'm headin' over to the western field, Mr. Robbie. You be needin' anything?”

Corn in time for harvest would be nice.

Robbie surveyed the struggling green shoots lining the field, far from the knee high height they needed to be any day now. “I'm fine, Jimbo. You go along.”

Jimbo saluted him. “Yes, sir. Don't you worry none. We'll have them yellow ears a sproutin' in no time. We believe in you, Mr. Robbie. We sure enough do. Ain't that right, Marcus?” He nudged one of the field workers.

“Sure enough,” Marcus nodded.

Robbie wished he shared their confidence. Even if the corn did sprout in time, how would they ever harvest all these acres? Another family of eight had left last week to join relatives in Ohio. Jimbo didn't have twenty mouths depending on him. Forty bright eyes looking to him in trust that everything would be all right.

And only half of those people worked the fields. The rest were children and young mothers—though perhaps they could at least help with the harvest. He did not wish to misuse them, but he supposed farm wives and children pitched in on such occasions.

Robbie leaned against his hoe and wiped his brow. It helped little with the rivers of sweat pouring from him in this noonday heat. A lone rider thundered toward him over the hill connecting his plantation to the Beaumont place at a pace that did not bode well.

Lorimer.

What was he doing here? He'd already whisked off the only woman Robbie ever loved. What more could he want?

At the last second, the man pulled the horse to a halt, slid down, and stalked toward Robbie. “What is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with
me
? You're the one who just came flying across my land as if you had the British at your heels.”

Lorimer slapped his hat against his buckskin trousers. “The sweetest, most beautiful woman in Virginia throws herself at you, and all you can say is, ‘I can't forgive you' and ‘I don't trust you.'” Lorimer closed his free hand into a fist and leaned aggressively toward Robbie.

Robbie rubbed his eyes. Had he been in the heat too long? Because this made no sense. But Lorimer still stood there seething. Robbie took a deep breath and looked over the field of sprouting corn. “That's not exactly what I said, and certainly not what I meant.”

“If you love her, do something about it. Before I take matters into my own hands.” Lorimer stepped closer, his unmitigated stare fixed on Robbie.

Robbie kicked the dirt at his toes. “Take her. She's yours.” He turned his head up and frowned. “But do right by her. Find a real job and care for that woman properly.” He almost offered an “or else,” but a wave of weariness washed over him, driving the fight right out of him. If Robbie couldn't have Constance, someone should make her happy, although it would all but kill him to see it.

“You're talking foolishness, Robbie. Go after her. As much as I hate to admit it, I sense she's not for me. I believe she's meant for you.”

Robbie recognized that tone of voice, the key words. Lorimer's prophet-speak. But somehow the mighty Lorimer had it wrong this time. “It's too late for us, Lorimer.”

“I took her to Sissy.”

“You what!” Robbie threw down the hoe and grabbed Lorimer's shoulders. “You idiot. Do you want the lot of them hanged?”

Lorimer jerked away from Robbie. “You should have seen them. Sobbing and clinging to each other like little girls. Constance was a new person. She plans to free them. All of them. You can trust her. She has a good heart full of forgiveness.”

Dare he? Robbie shook his head. He stretched his fingers from the fists he had formed without thinking. “I don't know.”

Lorimer hopped back on his horse. “Robert James Montgomery, by the time I come back next month, you'd better be courting that girl, or there's no accounting for what I might do.”

How he wished it might be possible. But Lorimer did not know the entire story. Robbie offered a wry grin and swiped an errant tear from his eye. He wouldn't cry. His father taught him real men didn't cry. Then again, according to his father, real men didn't free their slaves either. “I'll think on it, Lorimer.”

Lorimer leaned forward, aggression making way for true concern. “I'll be praying for you. For both of you.”

“You do that.” Robbie tapped his forehead in farewell.

Lorimer didn't understand. And Robbie had no desire to explain. His mind wandered back to that awful night. The night in Prince George County five years ago that changed everything. The night that had started with dancing and kissing and promises of forever—and ended in tragedy.

No one was meant to die.

Robbie had planned it perfectly. Or so he thought. Never before had he been asked to help an entire plantation of slaves escape, but they were on the verge of revolt, and he needed to divert disaster. This mission would require special preparation. He needed to become acquainted with the Cavendish family. Learn their habits and schedules. Know the land inside and out.

What better way to accomplish that than to court their pretty daughter?

But things had gone awry the moment he'd fallen in love. His mind became a muddle. He tried too hard. He couldn't execute the plan properly.

His job had been to keep Mr. Cavendish and the overseer out gambling all night at a neighboring plantation, as they often did after a big ball. Others from the movement would assist in the actual escape. When the overseer pled a headache and decided to leave their game hours early, Robbie tried everything to make him stay. When the man rode off into the night, all Robbie could do was mumble prayers under his breath as he shuffled through his cards and hoped against hope that the slaves would be gone before the overseer returned to Cavendish Hall. He couldn't risk his beloved Gingersnap discovering his involvement.

Nor could he turn his back upon his beloved cause. Robbie had witnessed the horrid scars covering the backs of the Cavendish slaves, observed the haunted eyes of the women who'd been misused. They had to get away before it was too late. Before they took matters into their own hands.

He simply hadn't meant for anyone to die.

Robbie would never forgive himself for not riding back with Mr. Cavendish. The man had been drunk, exhausted, and out of money from a night of heavy gambling. The situation turned from bad to worse when he arrived home to a pool of blood on the porch. His slaves were gone, and his wife and daughters were nowhere to be found. The man must have assumed the worst and keeled over of some sort of apoplexy.

Leaving his death at Robbie's feet.

Maybe if Robbie had been there, he could have calmed him or fetched a doctor. The man was the father of the girl he hoped to marry, after all—no matter his character.

The women returned from the river the next morning cold, wet, and alone, only to discover Mr. Cavendish dead on the porch. The overseer was found tied in an outbuilding later that day with a huge gash on his head, explaining the blood on the porch.

And Robbie hadn't been man enough to be there. He might as well have shot her father himself and been done with it.

How could he ever explain that to Gin…to Constance? Even if he could, he could never marry a woman who had once wished a cruel and lingering death upon every slave and abolitionist in the South, a woman who had called him a coward and a fool when he turned her down for her own good. A woman who said he wasn't a real man and swore he would never amount to anything in life.

They were words that still hurt late at night, like spikes being pounded in his head.

He surveyed the struggling corn field. Maybe she'd been right. Maybe he'd never amount to anything.

But Lorimer claimed Constance had changed. That she'd offered freedom to her slaves. Robbie had a hard time picturing it. Even so, if she knew the truth, she would never forgive him. Too much had passed between them. And no matter how he might long for her, no matter how much she'd changed, they could never be together.

* * *

Constance surveyed the swirling ballroom with a sharp eye, watching for any missteps or rhythm issues, but her pupils had come along nicely in only three lessons. They performed the first portion of the waltz like experts and managed passably with the second, flowing in gentle circular patterns with the rocking down, up, up motion.

The girls looked like fluttering dogwood blossoms in their white muslin dresses; the young gentlemen offered stunning contrast in their dark frock coats.

Constance smiled. She'd done well. With weeks of lessons left until the ball, she would finish the waltz and polish some of their other dances in addition. The glowing faces of the parents lining the walls attested to their pleasure.

She clapped and nodded to the accompanist as the song came to a close. “Excellent work today, students.”

“Miss Cavendish.” Terrence Sugarbaker's younger brother, Wyatt, stepped forward with Dolly draped over his elbow. “I've been thinking. If we're to introduce the waltz to America, I say we do it with our own Yankee Doodle flair.”

Constance couldn't resist his saucy grin. “Explain, Mr. Sugarbaker.”

“We've already discussed several variations. So what if we create our own version. Say, add in a little of this.” He twirled his partner in quick repetitive spins under his arm as he turned his own rotation.

“I have one,” shouted a Randolph boy, taking his sister Virginia by the elbow, barn-dance style. She swished her skirt along agreeably as he stomped out the beat.

Giggles and chuckles met their performance.

“Or how about this,” added the middle Patterson boy. He took Molly by both hands, and they flew together in a wild circle, pulling back against one another's weight. Molly giggled as they came to a stop, and she fell against the handsome young man to keep from toppling to the floor. But in typical Beaumont twin fashion, she let go too early, wobbled as dizziness won out, and landed on her well-padded
derrière
.

Constance raised an eyebrow as the students laughed out right.

Molly, winded by now, made herself comfortable on the floor.

“Oh, oh!” The irrepressible Wyatt waved his hand overhead, still ripe with ideas. “Or this.” He swept Dolly into his arms and dipped her near to the floor as she squealed in surprise. He kissed her cheek in that precarious position and lost his balance, tipping over top of her. They joined Molly on the marble tile. Blushing from his white cravat to his corn silk hair, Wyatt rolled off Molly with all due haste.

Constance managed to don her best school matron voice despite her ample amusement. “Students, settle yourselves. While I do see the merit of adding our own flair to the choreography, our goal is to prove the waltz a respectable dance. I shall think on it until we meet again. Class dismissed.”

As the students mingled and flirted, Mrs. Randolph approached Constance. “You certainly have a way with youngsters, Miss Cavendish. I can't believe how much you've accomplished in three short lessons. Have you given any thought to what you shall do after the ball?”

Constance forced herself to remain still, even as excitement overtook her.

“I would love to have you stay with us at Monticello for a season,” Mrs. Randolph continued without waiting for an answer to her question. “Mrs. Beaumont goes on and on about the ballet training you've given the twins, and I can see the results myself.” Mrs. Randolph smiled. “Despite the tumbles to the floor, for which I think the gentlemen were to blame and not your excellent tutelage. I'd be thrilled to have my young ladies enjoy the same advantages of grace and posture.”

“Why, I would be honored—although my family and I might be taking rooms in Charlottesville when we're finished at the Beaumonts'. Have you met my sister?” Constance waved quiet Felicity over to them. She had come to join the class with the twins but now blended with the wall covering. “Mrs. Randolph, allow me to introduce my sister, Felicity Cavendish. She is one of the finest artists you shall ever meet. Both she and my mother are exquisite seamstresses as well.”

“I'd heard about the sewing, but not the art. Father does so love art. I would be very interested in art lessons for the children as well. Have you a favorite painter, Miss Felicity?”

“I'm a fan of the new Romantics.” Felicity offered a quick grin before turning her gaze to her silk dancing slippers.

“And our sister back at the Beaumont plantation is a skilled musician, although I know your children already play quite well,” said Constance.

Mrs. Randolph pressed her hands together. “How exciting for our community. Have you ever given thought to a school for young ladies?”

“In fact, we have.” Constance smiled.

“Well, let's keep in communication about that. It sounds like an excellent idea. I would be happy to support such an endeavor.”

Their first patron! Constance kept herself from tapping out a few happy steps and twirling in a circle. That could wait until she arrived home. More parents pressed toward her on their way out, requesting she add them to her schedule of private lessons in the fall.

She gave Felicity's arm a little squeeze.

“You were right, Constance. About everything. I'm so happy here. I had forgotten how it felt to have friends.”

“And young men to court.” Constance wiggled her brows.

Her shy little sister turned a pleasing shade of pink. She'd barely spoken to her partner all afternoon. “Soon enough. But what about you, Constance? Wyatt's older brother was eyeing you at dinner last week. And Mr. Lorimer seemed quite smitten as well.”

Constance sighed. Perhaps someday she'd tell Felicity about Robbie, but not now, and most assuredly not here with so many potential listeners. “Soon enough, as you say. For now, let's focus on establishing ourselves as teachers.”

“You know I'd love to teach, but if you were to marry a rich plantation owner, you needn't bother. You'd be busy rearing children and running a home.” Felicity looked wistfully out the window.