The Randolph Legacy (37 page)

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Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

BOOK: The Randolph Legacy
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He leaned close, his tongue taking a playful swipe at her earlobe. “You are so delicious I will argue even with my Inner Light toward remaining out of trouble.”
“Oh, Ethan.” She hugged him hard enough to bring a spasm to his still-aching lungs.
“Silly woman,” he said gruffly, easing her grip.
Ida and Del stood over them suddenly, their affable demeanor gone, and purpose overcoming even the grief in their eyes. What had he done now? Ethan wondered, then realized immediately it was what he hadn’t yet done that was causing this.
“We almost lost you.” Ida said.
“I—” He looked to her husband. But Del was holding firm, too. Well, why shouldn’t he?
“It is time for all deception between us to cease. We know the look of runaways,” he said.
“And that you served with our Harry aboard the
Ida Lee
,” Ida whispered.
“How?” Ethan breathed out.
“Your hand, child,” Del explained. “The letter we posted for you to Richmond was in the same strong, steady hand that wrote our boy’s letters home from the sea. Did you think we would forget your skill in getting his thoughts on your own fine paper, Midshipman R.? Or sharing your oilskin packets to house the letters, so that now we have something left of him?”
Ethan felt Judith squeeze his hand. “On Mrs. Madison’s list. Burnett, of course,” she whispered. “H. Burnett; age: eleven years.”
Ethan looked away from the couple’s penetrating gaze. This was more difficult than he’d imagined. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. He was at my post, you see, when the cannons fired.”
“He was killed when the British boarded you?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t drown, then?” Ida asked.
“No,
madame
.
”
“That’s a good thing.”
“Good?”
“He was only afraid of drowning.”
“Were you with him, when—?” Del asked in a choked whisper.
“Yes, sir. I held him, his hand here, against my heart, until pulled away. It wasn’t long in coming, the death. It had grace. And a terrible beauty.”
Del Burnett took his wife under his shoulder and shook Ethan’s hand. “You and your fine lady honor our household, sir.”
“No. No, I don’t. But we were in such desperate need, Judith and I. And Harry said his family would never turn me away if ever I came to this place, on the shore of Maryland, where his parents kept the light.”
Ida reached into her apron pocket. She drew out a letter sealed with his sister’s stamp. “There
is
a physician in Richmond, isn’t there, dissembler?” she asked Ethan quietly.
“Yes.”
“This came today.” She handed him the missive. Ethan broke the seal and scanned the contents.
“He’s sent for you, then?” Del asked.
“Yes. But I think the Washingtons must repair their sloop and send their servants to sea again before the Blairs return to Richmond. If you might suffer the lot of us a little while longer.”
“Such a little while, Midshipman R. and your beautiful bride.” The woman brought the edge of her apron to her eyes. Queen Ida, Ethan realized, was crying. Perhaps that was the strangest event of the day.
“Where are your things?” Jordan Foster asked as they stood in the
small vestibule of the two-storied house on Charles Street. Judith clung to Ethan’s arm. What was required of an apprentice doctor’s wife? she wondered. She couldn’t even cook a proper meal. And she and her ardent lover were so far from the shore and its freedoms.
“This is all,” he said. “Judith’s reticule. My saddlebags.”
“Oh, I see.”
Ethan glanced back at where their horses stood off the main thoroughfare of the busy street. “You have stables?”
“No. I keep Lark at livery. It’s just down the street.”
“Ah.” Ethan nodded. “Has she been much trouble?”
“She’s served me well. I have a wide circuit of patients.”
“Already?”
“Your sister’s beat the drum.”
Ethan smiled. “She would. Will you come outside? To see your horse? We call her Morgan, for the breed, because I do not know her name. Judith’s mare is Two Hearts, and they’ve been good companions. Do you think we can keep them stalled together? Is it very expensive, boarding them out?” He glanced over the doctor’s shoulder. “This is a fine house. As fine as your place in Norfolk, isn’t it? I do not have my bearings. Does Sally live far? When do you think we might—”
The doctor took Ethan’s arm, abruptly stopping his flow of words. “You’re staying?” he asked in a strained whisper.
The two men stared at each other for what seemed to Judith an eternity.
“Is that not our agreement, sir?” Ethan asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“Seulement change d’avis?”
“What?”
Ethan blinked. “Pardon. I ask if you have changed your mind.”
“No!”
“Good.” He grinned in a way that made him look very young. “If you had, I’d owe you money I no longer have.” Judith felt his hand squeeze hers as he sobered his expression. “Give me a chance, Jordan. I know that I talk too much, but I listen well too, especially when I’m not frighted to the bone.”
“Frighted? What has you frighted, son?”
“You, standing here on your doorstep, looking at us as if we are strangers! Dr. Foster, Judith and I, we require little—a place by your fire. It will not be so bad. We won’t give you cause to regret your generosity. I will work very hard. And Judith is worth a dozen of me, you know that! She’ll—”
The doctor looked out at the slice of Virginia sky. Judith felt Ethan’s hand grow cold.
“
Mon dieu,”
he whispered. “It’s something else. Something’s happened. To my mother? Sally? One of the little ones?”
“No, no, no. Everyone is well.”
“What is wrong, then, sir?”
Jordan Foster’s eyes searched theirs again, as if they had the answer. “You’re staying? Here? With me?”
“Yes!”
The sad-eyed man finally smiled. “Well. Well, then. Allow me to welcome you. Come in, come in. Welcome home, Judith, Ethan. Home, yes. Welcome home.”
Judith stepped out of her husband’s hold, and took the physician’s hands. She kissed his cheek. “How good that word sounds to us, does it not, Ethan?”
She turned to see him scowl.
“Well, Candide?” the doctor prompted. “Where is your chattering tongue when your wife calls upon it? Are you happy to have come here to cultivate your own garden, or shall we cast you out to sea again?”
Judith laughed. “Oh, Jordan, don’t give him that choice! We’ll lose him forever!”
Ethan’s scowl deepened. “I’m going out to talk with the horses,” he announced, and turned on his heel. “They make sense.”
“Your walking stick,” the physician directed, fetching it from beside the door.
Ethan growled, snatching the doctor’s offering. He propped it on his shoulder and walked toward the horses, muttering.
Inside, Dr. Foster took Judith’s cloak and bonnet. “I’ll put a tea on. And there’s a cake around here somewhere, some kind of cake a neighbor brought over yesterday. Poppyseed, I think. Judith, your gown.”
It was a simple, high-waisted garment worn over one of Ethan’s shirts, one she’d refashioned to more feminine lines by sewing tucks in the generous sleeves. She’d tied ribbons along her arms, too, as she’d seen women do to make gentle puffs. It would not do to look patched-together in Richmond. She must not bring shame upon her husband. Had she? “My gown, sir?” she whispered.
“It’s lovely,” he said.
Judith smiled. “Anne Randolph gave me the cambric.”
“I remember. She said it would enhance your coloring. It does.” He swung the kettle over the small fire in the hearth. Judith surveyed the large room where the doctor probably saw patients. She recognized most of the furniture from his home in Norfolk, and was struck again by his sacrifice for their sake. She wished he would sit.
“Are you well, Judith?”
“Now, yes.”
“I—I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know?” she asked, patting the place by her side.
He sat. His eyes implored hers. For what? she wondered. “We were so concerned about his freedom, you see,” he finally said. “I should have known he’d not leave that place without you. I would have provided better—two horses, more money, had I known.”
She laughed. “Jordan, you were our lifeline!”
“Was I?”
“Of course! Your hesitation stems from what I sense, then? You believed it was we who might change our minds about your offer of a home and Ethan’s apprenticeship?”
“Of course! I failed him.”
“How?”
“He asked me to look after you, when he was in prison. I should have known what they were doing to confuse you, to make you consider the possibility that Ethan was capable of … . I’m a physician!” he exploded, standing, rubbing his forehead. “Ethan knew. Webbed—he kept telling me that your mind was webbed, that you would be yourself again once we got you away. Why didn’t I listen?”
Judith felt overwhelmed by the burden of his remorse. He stared into the small fire.
“Jordan, sit beside me again,” she invited. “Please.”
He did, but his eyes did not leave the fire. “After I left the coach party—was thrown off, actually—I came back. By then you and he were gone, and Prescott Lyman following. I didn’t think you had a chance against his trackers—you doused with laudanum, Ethan barely landed on those new legs …”
“Who told you? About the laudanum?”
“Hugh. He didn’t know what it was, of course, but he led me to it.”
“Poor child. He and Ruth, they are blameless in this. They only wanted a mother.”
He shook his head. “The trail went cold soon after you were out of Pennsylvania. For the trackers. For me, following them. I would have gone mad, I think, were it not for Anne and Sally. There was nothing to be done but prepare this home, they convinced me.”
“No. I think they did not convince you.”
He smiled ruefully. “Well, they succeeded in keeping me busy with the move upriver. When we received Ethan’s letter, I still couldn’t believe you would come, that you’d desire to stay. Judith, please forgive me. I should have listened, from the beginning. He had to steal you himself.”
“He didn’t steal me. He offered his hand. I took it. Freely. Under no influence but my Light.”
“Does he hate me now?”
“Hate you? All he can speak about is your bravery, your sacrifice. We are astonished by your generosity.”
He finally turned to her. “Truly?”
She tried to look stern. “Have you known me to be an idle flatterer?” she demanded.
“Even without your
‘thees’?
Even married to a Deist and dressed in rose cambric? No.”
“And now. Is it true what I feel? That Ethan and I are not burdens? That you believe our presence is your own good fortune?”
He bowed his head. “I suppose I will get used to it. Not being able to hide anything from you, Judith Mercer.”
She touched his hand. “Jordan, Ethan so desires to follow your path into healing. He learns quickly, as a child learns, with no fears that anything is beyond his ability. You have Sally’s word and Fayette’s and your own experience with him to assure you of that. His own sufferings have made him kind and patient and compassionate, and—”
“You don’t have to market me your husband, Mrs. Blair.”
She removed her hand to her lap. “Perhaps I must confess my own shortcomings, then.” She bit her lower lip. “Jordan Foster, I have never kept household accounts, nor churned butter, nor made cheese, and I am a failing, miserable cook!”
Judith stared at her hands. She felt the doctor’s frown.
“Well, how do you propose to contribute to this household?”
Judith raised her head. “I’m a good seamstress. I can take in sewing, and cut my silhouettes. And if there’s a garden plot …”
His frown deepened. “There is. It’s in ruin.”
“I’ll bring it back! I know about soil restoration. It will be flourishing, come spring. And I’ll have all my father’s medicinals growing in window gardens within weeks, you’ll see!”
The physician shook his head. “Judith, Judith.” He said her name fondly, she realized. He was such a different, less stern man when out of Ethan’s sight. Why was that? “I have kept my own accounts for many years. And my work here has been largely on a barter basis. That should make both your perceived inadequacies disappear.”
“How?”
“Few numbers will trouble either of us. If your husband and I manage to help our patients remain healthy, there will be an abundance of meals, smoked meat, fresh fish, and even a few delicacies to adorn our table. There will be no starving here.”
She noticed the steam vapors behind the doctor’s head. “The water’s boiling,” she told him.
“There, see? You can cook!”
Judith laughed, the last vestiges of trouble dissolving from her heart.
“I am so glad you married him,” Jordan whispered.
“He married me back. There was equal courage in that.”
 
 
J
udith opened the wardrobe door and found handsome inlaid-wood compartments and spaces too generous for their needs, as they’d given Ethan’s trunk and most of its contents to the runaway family there on the shore of Maryland. She began emptying her reticule. Two of the compartments were already filled. Anne Randolph had sent another dozen sheer cotton shirts up the river for Ethan. In the other an Oriental shawl of delicate, rich burgundy cashmere waited for her. She pulled it out, draped its soft folds over her shoulders. Though Ethan’s sad, elegant mother had never done more than squeeze her hand, Judith felt encircled in her arms.
Her husband turned from his place at the window. “It suits you,” he said quietly. He looked out over the busy streets of Richmond again. His eyes darted with the activity. He had never lived in a city, Judith realized, only on the sea and at Windover. She would help him get used to it. Jordan Foster had provided much more than a place by his fire. They had their own fire, their own gabled rooms in the house’s second story.
“I like it up here,” Ethan declared, “by the stars.”
Judith smiled.
“Small windows, though.”
“Ethan Blair, are you complaining?”
“No. There are so many people out there, Judith. And everyone moves so fast! I’m glad for this height. And the wall that places them on that side of us.”
Judith walked past their cherrywood sleigh bed to her brave, but not fearless, husband. She embraced his middle, resting her face against the silk backing of his waistcoat.
“I feel safe,” she whispered, “here in these rooms, in this house where my husband will discover the healing in his hands.”
He turned, took her arms. “If ever you do not feel safe, you’ll tell me, yes? You’ll not listen to pedantic Reason declaring it makes no sense. You’ll listen to your Light, and tell me?”
“Yes,” she said, slipping her hands past the opened buttons of his waistcoat, and hugging him close.
“Welcome home, Judith,” he whispered into her hair.
“Welcome home, beloved,” she answered, raising her face to his descending mouth.
Their door swung open. “Perfect, they’re kissing! Throw!”
Judith felt Ethan’s heart accelerate. He shoved her head down and turned his back to the assault. But she had already seen their attackers. “Rice!” she called to him, laughing. “Ethan, there’s no danger—it’s rice.”
His hold on her loosened. “Rice?”
Betsy giggled. “For the bride, the bridegroom—for showers of happiness. Didn’t the Frenchman teach you, Uncle?” Betsy called.
Judith opened her arms to welcome Sally and Barton Gibson’s family. Ethan was already stooping to catch his youngest niece.

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