America's First Daughter: A Novel (22 page)

I’d never heard of any man making his fortune this way. Every man of wealth we knew had built his fortune with land. All the Virginia gentry. All our friends in France. William had never sounded more like a wild-eyed radical. It was little wonder Papa thought he couldn’t support a family!

He must’ve seen that I doubted him. “When we return to America, we’ll settle somewhere more in keeping with my moral principles. Philadelphia or Boston or New York. If you become my wife, you may have your pick.” He gave a small smile. “We’ll visit your father in Virginia as often as you like. I’d never keep you from him. But I can never settle near Monticello, as he’s pleaded with me to.”

His voice was firm. There was no crack or waver in it to give me hope he might change his mind. And I shook my head, at a complete loss. The sun and the birdsong upon the breeze suddenly seemed to mock my predicament.
I would never leave you, or my country, but for God,
I’d said to my father. Was love for William to make a liar of me? “What you’re asking!”

He drew my hands to his lips, beseeching me with his eyes. “I’m asking you to make a life with me, not to abandon your duties as a daughter.”

Then why did it feel like that’s exactly what he was asking me to do?

I
PASSED THROUGH THE DAYS AND WEEKS
that followed in a confused haze, my thoughts preoccupied by my struggle to balance my heart’s desire with my lifelong duty. A confusion made worse by the strangest of tea parties, hosted by the Duke of Dorset. Having expected to be one of many guests, I arrived to find the salon bedecked in flowers, empty except for me and the duke. Dressed as if for a ball and not for afternoon tea, he guided me to the table.

“Are the others arriving late?” I asked as I sat. And then I realized there were only two settings.

“I understand that your father will soon take leave to America. But my nieces tell me you might be induced to stay, given the right offer.”

“What can you mean?” I asked, my scalp prickling as a servant swept into the room to pour the tea.

In answer, the duke produced a velvet pouch. “I wish to propose an alliance.” He dropped the contents of the little bag into his hand, and then held something out to me.

A ring. A diamond ring.

Perspiration dampened the back of my neck. “What kind of alliance is sealed with such an extravagant gift?”

“The kind that would unite your family and mine, and might reunite your people and mine.”

The diamond glinted in the candlelight, but I had not the slightest urge to take it.
Mon Dieu,
did he mean to make a proposal of marriage? I could not allow it, and not only because my heart belonged to another. This was highly improper in every way. And setting aside propriety, my father was the voice of American independence. To even entertain such a proposal would be to betray my father’s principles.

I had already allowed this to go too far. The duke continued speaking, and I may have replied, but what I remember most is my haste to escape. “Your Grace, I beg you to say no more.” I rose clumsily from my chair. “I am beyond grateful for your many kindnesses over the years, and I love your nieces dearly, but I cannot accept more than friendship from you.”

The duke’s hand sagged and he gave a little incredulous laugh as if he could not quite believe he was being refused. And by an American at that. For long moments, he pressed his case upon me, and I pleaded devotion to my father by way of excuse. Finally, in a resigned voice, he said, “Then take the ring anyway and remember me by it, for it is just a bauble.”

Perhaps to him a diamond ring was just a bauble, or perhaps he was salvaging his pride. I was just grateful that he did not seem angry when I finally took my leave.

Without the ring.

By the time I returned home, I was consumed with guilt, wondering if I had misled the duke and somehow disgraced my papa thereby. And I wondered if I should tell my father of the incident. If I should tell
anyone
of the incident. It would mortify Papa and perhaps the entire American embassy. Even if I could bring myself to make such a humiliating confession, it might force a discussion about William’s plans for our future. And that was a conversation I wasn’t ready to have.

So, that evening, I sat anxiously at the dining room table, nibbling at a spoonful of James’s strawberry ice cream.

“Don’t you like it?” Sally asked, readying to take my crystal dish. “It’s my favorite.”

“It’s delicious,” I said but could barely taste it for the maelstrom in my head and heart.

“Sally, you like ice cream
too
much,” Polly said, with a girlish laugh, her spoon clinking as she watched Sally round the table. “You’re getting as fat a belly as a pregnant lady. If you aren’t careful, everyone will point and say
enceinte
.”

“Polly, how unkind!” I scolded, my gaze whipping up. But something about the comment drew my father’s eyes to Sally’s middle. I looked, too, taking in the slight swell beneath the pink-ribboned belt of her flowing chemise gown. The moment might’ve passed without suspicion had Sally not spread her fingers over her belly like a fan, and turned her amber gaze to my father in what looked to be heartbreaking desperation.

My sister giggled. But Sally didn’t laugh and neither did my father. Instead, they exchanged a stricken, naked look between them that resounded like a thunderclap.

And my father flushed scarlet.

A sound like honeybees buzzed in my ears as the horrific re alization slowly made its way past my defenses to assault my reason.
Sally was pregnant.
And Papa wouldn’t be sitting there burning with shame unless . . .

No
. That couldn’t be. It couldn’t be
shame
I saw on his countenance. Perhaps it was anger that our lady’s maid had been seduced by some villain. Or perhaps jealousy that pretty Sally had given herself to some low-bred delivery boy, or some stranger from the streets, or some visitor.

I looked across the table at my father, searching for the truth, and under my scrutiny, he blanched. The scarlet color in his face drained suddenly away, leaving him in pale, bloodless mortification.

Then I knew he wasn’t jealous or angry.

He was
guilty
.

I tore my eyes away to spare us both the agony of acknowledging it. Close on the heels of my shock came a wave of anger and indignation. Here I’d been so tormented about wanting to be with William because it would mean leaving Papa alone. And, yet, Papa hadn’t been alone at all!

I clenched my fists beneath the table, which did nothing to still my hammering heart. And before I could compose myself or make any sense of my feelings, Papa shot up from the table, took Sally by the arm, and led her out.

From just outside the dining room, their soft intimate whispers sounded, not meant for our ears. They were lovers having a quarrel, while my sister and I sat there, bewildered, our ice cream forgotten and melting.

“Sally is going to have a baby?” Polly asked.

“Hush.” I pressed my lips together and
willed
my little sister to silence.

“But she doesn’t have a husband. Will we have to send her to the convent?” We knew girls who had lost their virtue and been sent to the Panthemont in the hopes that the world would forget. Papa had always taught us to treat such girls kindly, and to blame their error upon the wicked men who preyed upon the peculiar vulnerabilities of our sex. But Sally Hemings wasn’t a gentlewoman of society with a family reputation to stain.

Unless it was
our
family reputation.

Sally was . . . well, she was a lady’s maid and a chambermaid. Who in France—where prostitutes openly roamed the Palais-Royal—would judge her harshly?

However, my father they would gleefully judge.

For even I judged him.

All the same anger and confusion and revulsion I felt the night I came upon them kissing roiled up inside me anew. Was it because Sally was a girl not even my own age, and he a much older man? Unions between older men and young women our age were not so unusual, as the duke’s awkward proposal demonstrated. Was it because Sally had the taint of African blood? She didn’t seem tainted to me. Was it that Sally was my mother’s sister, and looked so much like her? Perhaps. Or was it, as William had once suggested, the evil of slavery that stained the union and corrupted it even here, where Sally was ostensibly free?

It was all these things and more. Deep, bitter resentment rushed through me at the realization that my father indulged his base inclinations while having contrived to separate me from the man I wanted.

I sprang to my feet, as if to flee from the reality of it, but where could I go? Instead, I paced, feeling like I couldn’t sit still or I might explode. “Say nothing more about it, Polly.”

“But—”

“Nothing at all,” I told her, reaching to give her a little shake. “We shouldn’t add to Sally’s burdens.”

Polly stared at me, her blue eyes swimming with confusion. The sister who came to us in France would never have obeyed. She’d have pestered me until her curiosity was satisfied. But in this one matter, we were fortunate Polly’s illness had made her into a more pliable creature—or at least one too weary to argue.

But I didn’t just want to silence Polly’s questions out of consideration for Sally, nor so that I might have a better chance to overhear the conversation playing out just outside the room. I didn’t want Polly to speak of it because . . . I didn’t want
anyone
to speak of it.

Here I’d been worrying about my father’s mortification at my proposal from the British ambassador, when Papa’s actions stood to mortify us all.

Just beyond the doorway, Papa reached to tug Sally close. I watched in fascination and horror as his hunger for her became crystal clear. How had I missed it and dismissed it as infatuation all this time? I’d told myself the wages and dresses and locket were some manner of apology for his ungentlemanly behavior.

I’d been such a fool! Perhaps the greatest fool in Paris. A fool not to see the danger in the duke’s attentions. A fool not to realize that William Short would never make a home with me and my family in Virginia. And a fool for believing my father was—

How many times did Papa’s eyes lock with Sally’s across the table without my noticing? How often had they stolen away to . . . to . . .

The memory of the kiss I’d witnessed long ago somehow transformed itself in my mind into two lust-fevered bodies upon my father’s bed, tawny limbs tangled with pale, freckled ones. I steadied myself on the back of a chair and shook the vision away.

Then, outside the dining room, Sally pulled free of my father’s desperate grasp, daring to turn her back on her master, and strode away, leaving Papa to bury his face in his hands.

That’s when I knew. He hadn’t just gotten her with child. He had
feelings
for her. Which meant as long as they were together, they’d create the opportunity for people to talk. I could already hear the mockery:
The voice of American liberty, who takes liberties with his enslaved maid.

What could I possibly do to protect any of us from it?

Truthfully I was so angry, I wasn’t sure I cared to try.

P
APA WENT STRAIGHTAWAY TO BED THAT NIGHT
without speaking a single solitary word to anyone. He stayed abed the next morning without soaking his feet in cold water, as was his daily habit. Upon waking, I found the unused basin of water just outside his chambers and Polly said, “He won’t take it unless Sally brings it to him, but she won’t.”

I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself to walk past his door and pretend that I didn’t hear the silent echo of his suffering over the roar of my anger. But instead I knocked lightly, then turned the ornate knob and found nothing but darkness inside. The drapes were pulled closed, and not even a candle by his bedside lit the room.

Papa’s voice came throaty through the blackness. “Go, Patsy. You’re letting in the light.”

I disobeyed, slipping into his solitary world with him and closing the door behind me. Then, filled with anger at him and shame for him, I dared to challenge Papa as I never had before. “Are you
truly
unwell?”