Now Face to Face (7 page)

For a moment, she was as disappointed as a child. She went to the garden yard. No one. Well, she thought, he will soon show himself again, I’m sure. There was a pen and an inkpot and paper gathered for her by her obedient Hyacinthe, and she sat down and began to make a list of all she needed to do. If these colonials thought her grandmother’s precious chickens were going to roost at night in trees, they had another thought coming. “Chicken coop,” she wrote firmly, boldly, thinking suddenly that she’d make a notebook for her grandmother about the plantation. It was her dogs barking, a good half hour later, that made her raise her head and go to the window again.

Two men had ridden up under the pines. The older was Bolling, she guessed, and the younger Klaus Von Rothbach, the nephew by marriage. Greatly excited to have guests, she touched her hair, smoothed the front of her gown, and walked down the steps into the yard—but her dogs ran out ahead of her and charged at the stallion upon which Bolling sat.

The stallion pawed the ground and tried to rear, so that Bolling had to work to keep himself in the saddle. Barbara managed to call the pugs off, to run with them back into the house and close them away into a chamber. Awful, she thought, awful dogs.

Back outside, she walked forward, not minding the nervous, dancing stallion.

“I am Lady Devane.” She was abrupt, boyish, without artifice, and therefore at her most charming. “Those were my dreadful dogs. I do apologize for them. You handle a horse wonderfully. I did not mean to keep you waiting before, but I had to change my gown. You are my first guest, you see, and I wanted to receive you properly. I hope you forgive me, both of you.”

God’s eyes, thought Klaus Von Rothbach, taking in the tiny star-shaped patch at her left eye, the thick red-gold hair, held in place by pins with pearls upon their heads but some of it escaping, curling about her face, with its lovely shape; she is as beautiful as they said she was. That voice of hers, it has the texture of dark velvet.

“I am Valentine Bolling,” said the man atop the stallion, “and this is my nephew, Klaus Von Rothbach.”

“Won’t you come inside?”

“No, I won’t. How do you find the plantation, madam?”

Startled by his refusal and abrupt question, Barbara was not quite certain what was in his voice and in his face.

“Disordered.”

“It has been without a master for over a year. A year and four months, to be precise. You see, Lady Devane, that we still grieve.”

The young man, this Jordan, her grandmother said, had killed himself. He’d lost his plantation in a game of cards with her brother, Harry, and later killed himself. That had meant little to her then, but of course it meant everything here. His uncle would be angry and grieved. It was truly dreadful. She herself had yet to be recovered from Harry’s death. They must mourn their losses together, must discuss wild young men and how much one could love them.

“Yes, the circumstances were tragic—” she began.

“The circumstances, madam, were disgraceful.”

And with those words, the stallion came too near Barbara, moving directly at her shoulder, forcing her to stagger back. If she had not been experienced at handling horses, she would have been frightened. As it was, she nearly fell.

“Uncle, stop at once!” cried Von Rothbach.

Bolling handled a horse too well. He did this deliberately, Barbara had time to think before Hyacinthe came running from somewhere, screeching like a savage. He ran headlong into the belly of the stallion, causing the horse to rear and dance backward on two legs, Bolling wrestling to control him.

“Hyacinthe!” Barbara’s breath caught at the sight of him under those flailing hooves, but the other man, Von Rothbach, had ridden forward, was nudging the stallion away with his own horse, leaning over and grabbing Hyacinthe up.

“Little fool,” Barbara heard him saying, and he was speaking in French, flawless French. “Calm yourself. This is not England. A slave can be killed for striking out at a master, even a boy dressed up like you. Settle down. No one will hurt your mistress.”

“Give him to me,” Barbara said, her voice shaking with anger. How dare Bolling behave so. You watch your temper, her grandmother said in her mind. I am watching it, she thought. Temper was one of her flaws.

“I have made your grandmother a fair offer for this place,” Bolling was grim and solid atop his stallion. “My brother and I built it. My father and mother are buried here. My brother, my niece. I will add one hundred pounds to the amount of purchase. I am good for it. You may have my bill of exchange upon Micajah Perry or William Dawson, both merchants in London, or I will give you the amount in my best tobacco, whichever you wish.”

His audacity was amazing. “You take my breath away, Mr. Bolling.”

“Colonel.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Colonel Bolling.”

“Colonel? You are a military man, then? So was my grandfather. In which campaigns did you fight during the French wars? Blenheim, with Marlborough? Lille, with Tamworth? My grandfather, the first Duke of Tamworth, was called the hero of Lille. My late husband, too, was once a soldier, a soldier and a gentleman. Rudeness was unknown to him or to my grandfather.”

“I am a lieutenant colonel of the Virginia militia.”

“The militia…a jest, yes?”

Klaus Von Rothbach, watching, thought, My uncle has not frightened her at all. There is strength beneath that beauty. And anger. Such anger. You intrigue me, Countess.

“My offer, Lady Devane.”

“I will write to my grandmother of it.”

“Seven years; it takes seven years to make a good tobacco man. And even then, the rain, the worm, the stupidity of one’s slaves may interfere. Will you whip the slaves, Lady Devane, when they refuse to work? Will you ride the fields to watch over the tobacco as it grows? Will you know when the leaf is cured? There is a certain texture, a spotting. A good tobacco man knows it. In seven years he has the feel, if he is fortunate. And the hogsheads, Lady Devane. There’s a trick. Too much leaf inside, and the staves break open. Not enough, and the tobacco crumbles away to dust. And if the rain doesn’t rot your crops or the slaves ruin it or the hogsheads break, there is still the merchant in London with whom to deal. Charges for freight, Lady Devane, which you pay. Duties at customs, which you pay, cheats upon the drawbacks, which likely you will never discover. They go to line someone’s pockets. No rest for the weary, Lady Devane. No letting up, ever. Not for a good tobacco man.”

Odious, burly, bearish man, thought Barbara, do you think I cannot do it? I can do anything I set my mind to. This last year has taught me that, if little else. I would like to knock you off that horse. How dare you come here and try to bully and frighten me? The muscles of her face set, showing themselves through the soft flesh. Those in England would have seen that she resembled, not her famous grandfather, as everyone so often observed, but her grandmother.

“I will write my grandmother. I will report your offer.” She said the words very slowly, very deliberately.

Like a hundred small slaps, thought Klaus.

Bolling snorted, a contemptuous, impatient noise that made Barbara even angrier.

“Amuse yourself, then. It makes little matter to me. But not for too long, or this plantation won’t be worth my first offer. I assure you, I never pay more for something than it is worth. Good day to you, madam.”

He spurred his horse, and before she could speak he had galloped from under the giant pines and out onto the road.

“Pig!” Hyacinthe called after him, in French. “Bully! Barbarian! I saw, madame. I followed. He would not come into the house. I went out to him with cider—I told him you would be with him, very soon, that you begged his pardon, but he would not come into the house. He told me to go away and leave him be. ‘Let’s see what damage she’s done,’ he said, and he and this man”—Hyacinthe pointed to Klaus, who sat atop his horse a respectful distance away but close enough to hear every word—“they went to your fields. I had to run so hard to follow, but I did run, and they talked with the overseer.
Your
overseer, now. I saw them.”

Hyacinthe was angry enough for both of them. Barbara saw him whirling out of the house, running into the stallion for her sake. He might have been hurt. Hero.

“Please forgive my uncle.”

Klaus had dismounted and was walking forward slowly, hands extended in a gesture of peace, as both Barbara and Hyacinthe watched him warily. There was not a penny’s worth of difference in their expressions.

“I must apologize for him. His behavior becomes worse with each passing year. He quarrels with everyone. For his sake, let me say he was quite fond of his nephew Jordan, and he has no children of his own, so that Jordan was his child. It was a shock to him, both Jordan’s death and the loss of this plantation. He has been fretting over it since it happened. For all his harsh words, he really would not harm you.”

“No, he would only allow his horse to trample me, and my servant, too. No real harm in that. Who are you?”

“Jordan Bolling was my brother-in-law. I married his sister, may she rest in peace. Klaus Von Rothbach, madam.”

Barbara was bristling still, furious that Bolling should have walked his horse into her, should have acted and spoken as he had. He had made an enemy of her before she had had time to decide whether to be one.

“And you, unlike your uncle, are not angry with me? Why not, sir?”

“Did you know Jordan?”

“I never met him.”

“Then you did not urge him to gamble, did you? Or risk his plantation on the play of a hand of cards? Jordan did a foolish thing of his own.”

Barbara considered him, his calm reasonableness.

“I came in peace. I wish you no harm. I apologize a thousand times, and that is still not enough, for my uncle’s behavior.”

His courtesy, in such contrast to his uncle’s rudeness, was calming her a little, as did the fact that they conversed in French, the language of all that was civilized. She looked him over more carefully. He must be at least thirty. He had a Gypsy, impish face, flat cheekbones to it. The sun had browned that face a warm color.

“You’re correct; a thousand apologies are not enough, Mr. Von Rothbach.”

“‘Captain’—I am captain of a sloop for my uncle, and so I am known as Captain Von Rothbach here,” and he smiled, acknowledging her earlier angry scoffing at colonial titles. The smile transfigured his face, making it a wonderful triangle of mouth and cheekbones. Barbara found her interest in him piqued. He had intelligence and wit.

“Warn your boy, please, that he must behave himself here. The laws concerning slaves are very strict.”

“I don’t know the laws about slaves.”

He had pulled himself up into the saddle; now he looked down at her from atop his horse. “Then, if I may, I will ride over one day and instruct you.”

Barbara cocked her head, smiled a small smile. Flirting was another of her flaws. You mind yourself, Bab, her grandmother said, in her mind. I am minding, Grandmama. It does no harm to flirt with an attractive man.

He remained where he was. “May I ride over one day, Lady Devane?”

“I don’t know.”

“Without my uncle. I come as a neighbor and friend.”

At this moment, a neighbor and friend sounded delightful. “Perhaps.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He was riding away, through the yard, into the high grass of the meadow, his back rising straight up from the saddle.

“Pig,” said Hyacinthe.

“He is not a pig, I don’t think.”

“The other one is.”

“Yes, he is.”

K
LAUS FOUND
his uncle squatting with his back against a tree in the woods near the first creek. His horse grazed nearby. Klaus dismounted.

“Your behavior was inexcusable, unforgivable. I thought I was going to have to strike you myself. What possessed you?”

“I could see nothing but her standing in what was Jordan’s yard, her with her patches and painted face. She doesn’t belong here, and Jordan does—only Jordan is dead, buried at an English crossroads, not even allowed the sanctity of a graveyard, because he killed himself. What word do you have on the sloop?”

“Your sloop can’t be repaired for almost two months. What shall we do? The carpenter hasn’t the cured wood he needs, but must send to Maryland for it. Odell is as nervous as an old woman about the barrels.”

They smuggled tobacco to the Dutch West Indies in barrels branded “Flour” and “Pork.” Klaus sailed the sloop into the second creek, and they loaded the barrels from the storehouse there.

“We’ll do as we always have.”

“We can’t.”

“This one last time we can.”

“How will you keep her from noting it?”

“I’ll leave that to you. Take her riding. Keep her distracted.”

“I have your permission to call on her, then?” Klaus was ironic.

“You have my permission to do anything you please until the barrels are loaded.”

“And once the barrels are loaded?”

“I don’t know, Klaus.”

Even though he was angry with him, Klaus put his hand on his uncle’s shoulder, for there was grief in Bolling’s face, resignation in his voice. Klaus was going to say, Yes, I miss Jordan, too.