Page 29 of The Indigo Heiress

28

No one will gain all without having lost all.

Madame Guyon

“Allow me to send for Dr. Blair,” Mrs. Ravenal said to Leith from the doorway of his bedchamber. “Your cold has taken a turn for the worse and your cough is alarming. It could well become a pleurisy of the lungs.”

“I’ve had worse.” Leith tried to reassure her without sputtering. “If I keep to my room, I should be well by the time I sail.”

But he was beginning to wonder. He couldn’t actually recall a time he’d lain listless this long. Not in recent memory. Various fevers and maladies often laid his colonial factors and storekeepers low, but he shrugged such ailments aside, never thinking any would slow him.

His hostess went away and sent up a servant to bring him broth and toast. Nauseous, Leith told him to set it on the small table near the hearth. Ravenal had brought more books while he was sleeping. They were stacked on his bedside table beside a decanter of well water within easy reach. He noticed Swift’s satire was missing. Had his host removed that blasphemous book? In its place were Thomas àKempis, Watts’s hymns, and other edifying works. Leith’s momentary amusement veered to concern.

Did Ravenal think his illness mortal?

To prove otherwise, he pushed back the bedcovers, his bare feet meeting the carpet whose intricate red pattern swam before his eyes. The effort brought an instant sheen of sweat. Dampness lined his brow and wet his nightshirt. Another coughing fit seized him, ending with an unforgivable curse. Fixing his eye on the unappetizing tray a few feet away, he pushed himself up from the bed and grabbed for the bedpost.

He missed the mark as another dizzying wave rolled through him, and he fell headlong into blackness. His hearing was the last sense to fail him. The resulting thud shook the room if not the townhouse, accompanied by a sharp shattering of dishes.

Now early January, the snow melted and the weather began to clear. Could this be the answer to their prayers? The household made quiet preparations for their travelers, and Juliet sought out Loveday.

When she found her in their dressing room among their traveling chests, folding a gauze apron, she felt a flicker of panic. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing for Scotland,” Loveday answered brightly, as if this was naught but a pleasure cruise up the Potomac.

Juliet withheld saying Hades would be more welcome. She hadn’t told Loveday about her last bitter conversation with Mr. Buchanan. “I’ve not consented to Father’s scheme. We may not ever leave here.”

She gave Juliet a slight smile. “We must be prepared, just in case.”

“Do you truly want to forsake the only home we’ve ever known?”

“I want to make a fresh start somewhere.” Loveday reached for a fichu. “I want you to be away from Father’s business and all the things here that bedevil you. I want to see you free of headaches and the light returned to your eyes.”

True, her headaches were always present now in varying degrees. She was either getting one, getting over one, or in the throes of one. But it hardly equaled the suffering of the trio in the cellar.

Loveday went about the dressing room plucking ribbons and lace ruffles from a drawer. “I feel in my spirit the liberty of travel will soon be denied us.”

I feel in my spirit. It had been one of Mama’s sayings. Rarely had it been proven wrong. Pondering it, Juliet leaned into the doorframe and crossed her arms.

“I shan’t forget your favorite hat—the blue-flowered bergère with the Brussels lace.” Loveday took it from a hatstand and stowed it in a bandbox. “Never mind us. When will our guests be safely on their way?”

“Tomorrow, perhaps,” Juliet said, her unrest rising. “All is in readiness if the weather holds.”

At the sound of hoofbeats, Loveday paused her packing and looked toward the front lawn. Juliet stayed by the door. Father and Zipporah already?

“A post rider is turning up the drive.” Loveday leaned into a sunlit window, hands pressed upon the sill. “Oh my, I pray nothing has happened to the honeymooners—or Aunt Damarus.”

The very mention sent Juliet downstairs just as Hosea returned from outside, post in hand. She took the paper, thankful the wax seal wasn’t an ominous black, and passed into the parlor, Loveday on her heels. There she opened the post, spilling something onto the carpet.

“Oh my!” Loveday bent to retrieve it. In her open palm lay the miniature Father had given Mr. Buchanan. She sent Juliet a beseeching look. “Please, read it aloud.”

On tenterhooks, Juliet did so, the foolscap giving a crisp rustle.

Dear Juliet,

I am writing this letter against the wishes of Leith Buchanan but feel it prudent to inform you he is gravely ill. He is now under the care of Dr. Blair, who is not hopeful of his recovery. Since you parted on uncertain terms, he left me this miniature he had carried on his person , which I now return to you.

I trust you and your sister continue well at Royal Vale.

Ever at your service, Nathaniel Ravenal

“Uncertain terms?” Loveday’s grieved look shamed Juliet. “You’ve kept something from me. Clearly I’m in the dark.”

Juliet began brokenly, “’Tis complicated...”

Stepping back, Loveday passed the miniature to Juliet. She then burst into tears and fled the parlor, her hurried footsteps on the stairs carving deeper dismay into Juliet’s heart. Her tenderhearted sister felt things deeply. Loveday’s hopes were undeniably dashed. Had she truly wanted to sail to Scotland and make a new start, or was she just being brave to bolster the both of them?

Juliet sank down atop the carpet, the miniature before her. Never had she expected to hear such ill tidings. The let ter had been written early this morn. “Gravely ill” meant a hundred haunting maladies. Malaria. Smallpox. Yellow fever. The flux. Leith Buchanan might now, hours later, be dead.

For all his faults, the man had seemed in the best of health. Robust ... riveting.

The honest admission rebounded like a slap. She could no longer deny it. She’d expected revulsion, not attraction. Disgust, not desirability. He stood for all that she loathed.

Lord, please don’t let him die.

“Are you well, Miss Juliet?” Hosea hovered at the parlor doorway, ever ready to help.

“I’m afraid Mr. Buchanan is gravely ill in Williamsburg.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he replied, raising his sleeves. “A most generous guest. Gave me the cuff links he wore that I admired upon his leaving.”

Juliet blinked, feeling as if she was hearing about someone else. Had her prejudices blinded her to his finer qualities so completely? “Kind of Mr. Buchanan ... good that you have that memory of him.”

While she herself had last left the Scot with a scathing word.

“Should I have Lilith bring herbal tea up to Miss Loveday?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you. Perhaps that will help.”

Juliet continued to sit atop the rug, the letter and miniature before her. She hardly heard Loveday come in a half hour later, tears dried, though her face was still blotched red.

Instead of taking a chair, Loveday sat down on the carpet across from Juliet, their skirts billowing about them. “Tell me everything,” she said.

Juliet picked up the miniature, staring at her own reflection. “There’s something I’m not even telling myself, mainly that my feelings for Mr. Buchanan override my good sense.”

“Feelings? So you admit to them. And they aren’t loathing.”

“When I first saw him at the Raleigh Tavern for the tobacco meeting, I was ... intrigued. He, being a stranger, of course, stood out, though it had little to do with the eye patch he’s since shed. Then, the evening of the ball when I realized who he was, I was all the more enamored despite everything.”

“And you feel it scandalous?”

“It defies explanation.”

“Who can explain attraction? ‘Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: yet who would live, and live without thee!’”

Torments, truly. “The late Joseph Addison.” The poem only made Juliet more moody.

Loveday’s luminous eyes turned piercing. “What are you going to do?”

“What is to be done?” Juliet looked at the discarded letter lying between them. “The fact remains, I abhor all that he stands for and can only pray my infatuation is fleeting. Meanwhile, Mr. Buchanan seems to be dying. That may well end the matter.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Juliet returned the miniature to the letter and refolded it. “We have other pressing things to think about in the cellar with those who needs be on their way.”

Bundling up in her warmest wraps, bonnet, and boots, Juliet cleared her head by taking a long walk about the grounds of Royal Vale. The frozen ground was slick, as slick as their circumstances. One wrong move could cost them dearly, both in terms of their cellar guests and her and Loveday’s future.

Why had she been so caustic with Mr. Buchanan? Had her humiliation of him lent to his illness? Was she partly to blame for his current state? The possibility gave her no peace. She’d behaved abominably. Even Aunt Damarus would call her frightfully unladylike. Not to mention her outright rebellion against Father’s wishes.

She continued on in silent melancholy, the wide river before her a shiny pewter beneath cannonball clouds. Even in midwinter the land held a deep, unshakable beauty. How blessed they’d been to walk where generations of Renicks and Catesbys had walked. Yet Father was willing to let it go to someone else entirely, a stranger with no ties whatsoever.

But Father wasn’t a Renick. He’d merely assumed ownership of the land once he wed their mother. Juliet sighed. What would Mama think of this sudden turn of events? Would Father have dared to sell her family home in her lifetime?

Juliet turned round and looked hard at the house itself. A place was made of more than the bricks that built it. Those within were what mattered most. They loved and laughed, talked and dreamed, disagreed on occasion, and grieved. Though Royal Vale had lost its heart since Mama had died, it was still their home, the only home they’d ever known.

Was it wrong to be so attached to brick and mortar? Might she not make a home elsewhere, with other people, even on a distant shore? With the last man she’d ever consider?

Her earthly father had made his wishes plain. She looked skyward, more pensive than ever.

What would her Father in heaven have her do?