Calhoun Chronicles Bundle (79 page)

J
amie was unexpectedly nervous during the journey to Albion. In the roomy hired coach, he played host to four guests, Franklin Cabot and his daughters and Professor Michael Rowan. Jamie had engineered the whole thing in order to make a point with the senator. Yet instead of sensing victory, he felt weighted by the idea that much was at stake here.

Keeping his apprehension carefully tucked away, he said, “There’s your disputed land, Senator. That’s what the railroad companies want to claim.” He pointed out the broad flatlands of the low country farmers. They were poor, simple families of the land, sharecroppers and ex-slaves tending crops and raising livestock. The railroad company wanted to reclaim the central valley in order to increase its coverage of Virginia, sending the long fingers of commerce down to the very edge of the Chesapeake, where barges and seagoing vessels could complete the link across the sea.

Holding aside the leather flap of the wind shield, the senator rubbed his side-whiskers in thoughtful interest. He studied the fertile lowlands fed by innumerable estuaries, the rice and indigo fields etched into the landscape and the occasional shanty hunched in the middle of a field.

“An expensive proposition, as you can see,” Jamie said, “given all the drainage and reclamation work it would take to lay tracks. What were the calculations per mile?”

Cabot lowered his bristly eyebrows. “Your point being?”

“I just wondered, sir, if it’s to be so hugely profitable, why wouldn’t a private railroad company pick up the expense?” Jamie felt Abigail’s attention like the heat of an unseasonable sun. He knew she couldn’t understand his opposition to the expansion. As a moneyed landowner, he ought to favor it. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. And his task was to convince her father to agree with him.

“That’s precisely what my opponents in Congress are fond of asking me,” Cabot replied to his question. “They fail to see the long-term benefits of railroad expansion in this state. For years, there’s been a fever for westward expansion, but when it comes to looking after our own home state, we fail to invest. That must change.”

Jamie nodded politely. “That’s why I came to Washington,” he said. “To change things.” He indicated the broad, misty fields, some of them still studded with sheaves of corn. In the distance, a lone farmer wrestled with a plow tugged by a rangy mule while his children played in the turned-under chaff in his wake. Jamie couldn’t have asked for a better picture to show the senator—this was the American way of life at its most fundamental level.

“He’s your constituent every bit as much as the railroad companies,” Jamie said. “More so. The railroads are run by industrialists from Pennsylvania and New York. These lands are worked by Virginians. Tell me the railroads will put it to better use.”

Cabot leaned back against the leather seat, crossing his gloved hands over his knees. “I admire your ambition, Calhoun. But I remind you that politics is a tricky business. Alliances are fragile things, and they change with the wind. You’ll want to form yours with delicacy and skill.”

“Excellent advice, sir,” Jamie said, struggling not to mock the patronizing tone. “I’m fortunate to have the benefit of your wisdom and experience.”

Abigail stifled a choking sound beneath a lacy handkerchief.

“I hope you’re not allergic to the sea air,” her father said with a frown.

“No,” she said, looking as though she wished to sink beneath the seat cushions. “It’s just a bit thick in here.”

Jamie wanted to choke her himself. “Never fear, Miss Cabot,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

His guests reacted to Albion as he hoped they would—with gratifying admiration. The seaside home of his boyhood had a haunting beauty all its own. The house occupied a gentle rise, bathed in the mysterious sea-light unique to the Chesapeake.

Live oaks arched in a graceful canopy over the long, straight drive leading to the main house. On either side, pastures rimmed by endless white fences rolled out into the gentle hills and down to the sea. Mares and yearlings browsing in the high fields lifted their heads at the scent and sound of the approaching coach horses.

The driver pulled up in front of the house. The surface of the horseshoe drive, composed of crushed oyster shells, crunched under the iron-banded wheels of the coach.

Two footmen attended the new arrivals. Seamus and Will were both cordial and deferential as they secured the stair in place and handed the ladies down. Helena smiled in appreciation of their old-fashioned manners, and both attendants nearly dropped their jaws at the sight of her. Predictably, Abigail accepted minimal assistance exiting the coach.

Jamie watched her as she tipped back her head, one hand on the crown of her hat, holding it in place as she regarded Albion. He saw the reflection of the imposing house in her wide eyes—tall windows, slender columns flanking the entryway, the pediments fashioned in the classic lines of a Greek temple.

“So this is your family home,” she said. “It’s lovely.”

Rowan scratched his full beard and studied the imported, hand-carved spindlework trim that stretched the entire length of the gleaming veranda. “I should be charging you a higher rent, Calhoun.”

At that moment, the front doors swung open. There stood his parents, as proper and stiff as a pair of lawn jockeys. His father wore a beautifully tailored frock coat and trousers of superfine; his mother was predictably lovely in a gold satin gown. Both of them smiled a cordial welcome, and none of the guests seemed to notice the tiny details that were glaringly obvious to Jamie. Lines of discontent had been permanently etched in his mother’s face, and a subtle glaze of a morning dram of whiskey shone in his father’s eyes.

Jamie took a deep breath to steady himself. The weekend stretched endlessly before him.

“Jamie was always such a trial to us,” Tabitha Calhoun announced to everyone, but her beautiful smile softened the comment until no one noticed it was a condemnation. “I can’t tell you what a pleasant surprise it is to find him in such excellent company, now that he’s gone up to Washington.”

With the measured gait of a bridesmaid, she led the way into the formal parlor and invited the guests to sit down. Jamie’s father clapped him on the shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you a stint in the legislature would be just the thing?” He lowered his voice, adding, “Hated to see you eating yourself alive over Noah.”

“Indeed,” Jamie murmured, gritting his teeth. It wasn’t so bad, he told himself. Yet when he glanced at Abigail, saw her watching him with those deep midnight eyes, he wondered if he’d made a mistake in bringing her here. Unlike everyone else, she seemed to understand him and his fierce desire to be a part of this place that had never wanted him. It was unsettling, having someone in his life who saw him so clearly. He wasn’t sure he wanted that.

Over a lavish supper, Charles and Tabitha Calhoun regaled the Cabots with anecdotes about their home, their horses, their neighbors. They did themselves proud, entertaining the senator and his daughters. Jamie never should have doubted his parents’ charm, which was always more potent when fueled by the urge to make an impression, and, in his father’s case, by a nip from the silver flask he always kept close at hand.

He regarded his parents as one might regard a pair of not very interesting strangers. In his younger days, Charles had a reputation for recklessness and lack of ambition. Some thirty years earlier, he’d carried on with a married woman, and when she died, he’d been adrift until his cousin Hunter, then master of Albion, had put him in charge of a new enterprise that had the whole county gossiping.

While most plantations raised tobacco, cotton, indigo or rice, Albion bred racehorses with Irish Thoroughbred bloodlines. The venture had carried enormous risk, but eventually it had brought the Calhoun family enormous profits. It had also brought Charles Calhoun the prettiest, most well-heeled debutante in the region.

Tabitha Parks was equaled in wealth and beauty only by her sister, Priscilla. Tabby and Prissy, as they were known, had always seemed to Jamie to be women who didn’t quite fit into the present world. His aunt and mother were born and bred to be plantation mistresses, but the War Between the States had changed their lives irrevocably. While they labored to embrace the new order of things, Jamie suspected they’d never quite adjusted to having servants and workers who were free to come and go as they pleased.

With Albion’s status as the premier stud farm on the eastern seaboard, all should have been well. All
had
been well—for a time. Until Jamie had grown old enough to understand that for people like his father and mother, true happiness was no more expected, or likely, than snow on the Fourth of July.

Jamie knew his parents loved him in a remote, detached way. But they also regarded him with a certain objectivity, as they might one of their prize horses. They discussed his strengths and his limitations in endless detail. Their expectations for him had been enormous. He could not recall one time he’d been given praise or approval for anything but a perfect performance.

To his mother’s oft-stated disappointment, he’d been an only child. When he was old enough to understand that this was regarded as a family tragedy, he took on the task of fixing it. With all the sincerity and the flawed logic of an eight-year-old boy, he’d set out to tell the world that he wasn’t an only child at all. He had an older half brother, Noah Calhoun, then twenty-five and the most successful Thoroughbred jockey in the country. Jamie sent a letter about him to the
Chesapeake Review,
and on publication of the letter, the whole region seethed with the news.

Jamie had always worshiped Noah. It never occurred to him that his mother might not want to acknowledge the son Charles Calhoun had sired on a slave woman. The episode sent his mother to bed in a fit of melancholy that lasted three months.

The next year, they sent him far away from Albion. They enrolled him in a dank, venerable academy for boys up in Philadelphia and he only came home for a week at Christmas, and during the summer. From that time on, his boyhood consisted of a process of being sent away, when all he really wanted to do was come home and live close to the land, to grow things and breed racehorses and sit on the porch in the evening, waiting for the stars to come out.

“You’re so very quiet, son,” his mother remarked, joining him on the broad front veranda after supper. “It’s not like you.”

He took her hand, slim and pampered as a queen’s. “Just enjoying the view, Mother.”

“I do love it when Albion puts on her autumn colors. The poplars turn such a beautiful shade of gold.”

“You have a fine home,” Senator Cabot said, strolling outside with his host.

A servant came forward with a teakwood humidor. Charles selected a cigar, then offered the box to Jamie and Cabot.

“You must find our little piece of Virginia quite provincial after the bustle of the capital city,” Charles commented.

“That’s the key to its charm,” Cabot said. Taking a silver guillotine clip from his pocket, he trimmed the cigar with a swift and expert motion. “You’re blessed in having such a place.”

“A pity you can’t stay longer,” Tabitha said with a smile at Jamie. “But I understand, you have your duties in the capital.”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.” It always came to this, to a reminder that Jamie was really only a guest in this place. If he was a guest in his own home, a lodger in Rowan’s town house, then where did he belong?

“D
on’t scream,” said a voice as a large hand covered her mouth. “It’s only me.”

Abigail had been immersed in a delicious dream she wanted to remember forever, a misty fantasy of dancing gracefully to a beautiful waltz while everyone watched her with admiration. Rudely awakened, she couldn’t have screamed if she’d tried. Shock and terror held her mute and immobile, until her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she recognized the intruder.

He removed his hand.

“What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “What time is it? Is something the matter? What do—”

Jamie Calhoun’s hand came down again, pressing at her lips. “To answer your questions, I’ve come to show you something. It is two o’clock in the morning. And nothing is the matter unless you decide to wake the whole household and make a scene.”

She clawed his hand away and regarded the unmoving lump of covers on the bed across the room, where Helena slept. “What on earth do you want to show me?” she asked, adjusting her voice to a whisper.

“Nothing on earth.” He dumped a long cotton robe in her lap. “Put that on and come with me.” With a sulfurous hiss, a match leaped to life as he lit a lamp. Setting it aside, he held up the robe for her.

Trapped. Abigail was trapped. She couldn’t get out of bed, certainly not in the light. “I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

“Don’t be difficult,” he said, shaking the robe. “Come, you’re wasting time.”

“Get out of here. You’ll wake Helena.”

“Professor Rowan has already seen to that.”

Clutching the bedsheets to her chest, she peered across the guest room. “She’s gone?”

“Indeed.” Strolling over to the other bed, he excavated the pillows that had been arranged to resemble a sleeping body. “Your sister has an appetite for adventure. I assure you, Rowan will look after her.”

Abigail felt neither surprise nor alarm at her sister’s disappearance. Without ever actually acknowledging it, Abigail had known for quite some time that Helena sometimes went off on undisclosed errands, and that no amount of scolding or worry would stop her. If Abigail studied the sky in search of their mother, then Helena sought to fill the emptiness with adventures in forbidden, earthbound places.

“Do not tell my father,” she said.

“What do you take me for? Don’t answer that,” he added quickly. “Just put the robe on. Where are your slippers?”

Apprehension clutched at her chest. “Leave the lamp and wait for me outside.”

He chuckled. “Abby, we’ve broken every possible law of decency already. Save your modesty for Boyd Butler. He’ll appreciate it so much more than I.”

Right now, she could think only of Jamie, of his nearness, his keen eyes studying her. “Leave, or I will not move from this bed.” She hoped he couldn’t detect the panic in her voice. Holding her breath, she glared at him until he departed. Only when she heard the click of the door did she scramble out of bed. She put on her shoes, not the slippers, because she could walk better that way. The robe actually belonged to Helena but that was fine. That meant the hem would drag along the floor, the better to conceal the ugly shoes.

She picked up the lamp, slipped out into the corridor where Jamie waited.

“All right,” she said. “What was it you wished to show me?”

He took her hand in his and led the way down the corridor. The occasional floorboard creaked, but otherwise an almost eerie silence hung in the antique halls of Albion. It seemed very strange to Abigail, accustomed as she was to the noise and activity of a city that never quite settled into sleep.

At the end of the hall they encountered a narrow doorway and staircase. On the next floor, they passed through a room full of draped furniture. She guessed it had been a nursery or child’s room.

“Was this your room?” she asked.

“Long ago.” He slowed his pace and scanned the walls, hung with framed pictures of horses and riders.

She indicated three low, cloth-draped bedsteads. “Were there other children in the house?”

“No one shared the room with me. This nursery has housed a lot of Calhouns over the years. Some generations were more prolific than others.”

She tried to imagine him growing up here, under the critical eye of his handsome parents. It was a troubling picture. He’d told her little about his past but she sensed a certain detachment in his family, a lack of connection. “It must have been lonely for you, being up here all by yourself.”

Dropping her hand, he slid aside a wooden panel, revealing another set of stairs, these even steeper and narrower than the previous ones. She wondered at his reluctance to speak of his childhood. Albion should have been such a magical place for a boy to grow up in.

“A hidden door,” she said. “Very intriguing.”

“Family legend has it that the first generation of Calhouns installed escape routes through the attic and the root cellar to protect them from pirate attacks.”

Cobwebs and forgotten furniture crammed the space. The wooden spindles of chairs and tables resembled dried bones in a knacker’s yard. A rustle, followed by a scrabbling sound, startled her and she pushed herself up against him, remembering too late that she wore only a thin nightgown and robe.

She’d never touched a man like this before, with her arms wrapped around him from behind as though he were saving her from drowning. The overwhelming impression was of…firmness. He felt like the trunk of a tree, but warmer, more giving.

Flustered, she let go and stepped back. “Pardon me,” she said. “I heard a noise.”

“You should hear them more often, then.” He turned, grinning in a way that made her wonder if he knew how hard her heart was pounding. “It was only a squirrel, maybe a possum. Watch your head here.” At the gable end of the attic, he opened a low door, and they emerged onto a flat area of the roof surrounded by a low railing.

“Put out the lamp,” she said. The welcoming night filled her with an enchantment that left no room for any other feeling. After he did so, she turned slowly in a circle with her face raised to the sky. “This is absolutely perfect, Mr. Calhoun. I’ve always longed to be in a place this dark and remote.”

“You should’ve come to Albion long ago. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

The perfect clarity of the night thrilled her. She’d rarely seen constellations with such acuity, nor had she been able to pick out so many uncommon colors and formations with her naked eye.

“In the spring, you get so many frogs you can’t hear yourself think.” Jamie wandered to the railing that faced the water. “It’s quieter this time of year.” He pointed to a tall, straight-trunked tree a good hundred feet tall. “See that old loblolly pine out there? Years ago, my father’s cousin Ryan built a viewing platform so he could watch the shipping traffic in the bay. Later he became a sea captain. He’s retired now, living in a fine old house on Cape Cod. I’d take you up to the platform but the wood’s probably rotten.”

“This will do.” She inhaled the smell of seawater and dry leaves and hay. “Albion is a wonderful place. It’s full of your family’s history, isn’t it?”

“I reckon so.” He spoke with a mild nonchalance, and again she wondered how he truly felt about this place.

She tried to discern a shadowy hulk on the distant horizon. “What’s that?”

“The ruins of a neighboring plantation. It was called Bonterre, and it belonged to the Beaumonts. Burned by the Yankees during the war.”

“How did Albion escape the burning?”

“The Union Army designated it a hospital and officers’ quarters.”

“That was fortunate, wasn’t it?”

“Luck had nothing to do with it. Some said the Yankees showed mercy due to our strategic location, but it was more than that. The Calhoun family embraced abolition back in 1851, when Cousin Hunter gave the slaves of Albion their freedom. When my father took over the farm, he carried on the tradition of using paid labor. I’m told it didn’t endear him to the neighbors.”

“You must be proud to be a part of that tradition, then,” she said. A curious excitement gripped her. In getting to know Jamie Calhoun and his family, she felt as though she were peeling away layers, moving closer to the man he truly was.

“So how will you make your mark, Mr. Calhoun?”

“Is it required that I do?”

“Maybe. It appears to be a tradition with the Calhouns.”

“I admit, knowing why Albion was spared during the war was one of the factors that prompted my decision to run for Congress—the notion that sometimes it pays to play politics.”

He took her hand and brought her to the middle of the roof. To her astonishment, she found a thick blanket spread upon the surface. Laid out on the blanket was a basket of apples, a round of cheese, a loaf of bread. “What is this?”

“If you don’t recognize a picnic when you see one, then we’re going to have to work even harder than I thought.” He took both her hands in his. “Sit.”

Excruciatingly conscious of her inadequate garments, she sank down, praying the robe would keep her covered. He didn’t seem to notice her discomfiture as he sat beside her and offered her an apple. Taking it from his hand felt like a forbidden intimacy. With an air of defiance, she bit into the cool, crunchy flesh of the apple.

“So it’s dark enough for you here?”

“Indeed it is.” She angled her face to the night sky. “What a blessing to have this place. Will it be yours one day?”

“Maybe. Never gave it much thought.”

His indifference piqued her curiosity. “Don’t you love your home?”

“A home is where you belong. I haven’t lived here in years. My lodgings in Dumbarton Street are fine until my travels take me elsewhere.”

“And where might that be?”

“Who knows? Mexico? California? China? Have you ever thought you might like to travel, maybe visit a place like California?”

She chewed her apple thoughtfully, focusing on Mars, which exhibited its faint rose-tinged nimbus. The distant places sounded mysterious and exciting. “Absolutely,” she said. “Oh, I should like to travel far one day. I would so love to go to the observatory at the Vatican, or to see the stars from a high mountaintop.”

“Traveling so far wouldn’t bother you?”

She set down her apple core and pointed to the sky. “Of course not. I dream of things that are uncounted worlds away. California seems close by comparison. What about you? Do you long to travel and see the world?”

“Already seen the world, or plenty of it, anyway. Too much, perhaps. I stayed away…a good long time.”

She sensed a dark note in his voice and wondered what had befallen him on his adventures, but wasn’t sure how to ask him. With his too-easy insouciance, he pulled an invisible curtain in place, shielding himself. “Tell me of your travels,” she said.

“Not tonight. You’ve got every star in the sky looking down at you.”

Abigail didn’t press him. “You pleased your family enormously by going into the legislature.”

“How do you know they were pleased?”

“Your mother said so. She said you returned home from abroad and shouldered the mantle of responsibility. That’s interesting, to have your life turn out exactly as planned.”

He laughed. “Is that what you think?”

“It appears to be so.”

“Honey, if my life had turned out exactly as planned, I’d be married to a blond Richmond debutante and we’d have six kids by now.”

“Perhaps you’ll still—”

“Marry one day? I won’t. Ever.”

His vehemence startled her. She wondered why he took such a dim view of marriage, or if indeed that was the case. While they shared a long silence, the moon began its rise, diluting the darkness of the sky. Blue-toned light shimmered down upon the gardens and quiet bay.

She felt his light caress on her hand, then her shoulder, and she pulled back in alarm. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Proceeding with your plan, or have you forgotten? By the time Boyd Butler comes to call, you must be totally prepared for his courtship. That includes knowing how to act when a man touches you.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t.”

“That’s a fallacy made up by women who dislike being touched. You’re not one of those, are you?”

“I, um, wouldn’t know.”

He rested his fingertips on the back of her hand, grinning when she recoiled. “It’s not a poisonous spider, love.” He put his hand back.

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

“Trust me, it is. Showing affection with a touch is the most natural thing in the world. Enjoying it is natural, too. Seduction is a marvelous thing, but it takes practice.”

Moonlight and indigo shadowed his face, and she could see the gleam of his teeth as he smiled. She resented the fact that he seemed to know what she felt, yet she could not banish the warm ribbons of sensation. She wished he’d been wrong about her enjoyment of his touch, but the truth was, she found it far too pleasant.

Warmth started deep and low inside her and radiated outward in slow, subtle pulsations that touched fire to certain parts of her. She felt a sweet burn in places she knew of only due to furtive, forbidden perusals of Professor Rowan’s dog-eared copy of the
Physick’s Anatomy.