He stopped abruptly. “Judith, are you not angry?”
She shook her head, breathless.
“You were not laughing at me?”
“No! At myself, the great reader of hearts. I misread thine, in thinking thee came to Pennsylvania to return my pirated soul.”
“Return? Do you think me a witless fool,
madame?”
One hand anchored at her waist, her real one, not the artificially high one of her gown and apron. “Judith. Listen to me. I cannot offer what this farmer has. But Jordan Foster has agreed to take me on. Choose me and you choose a physician’s apprentice. We will have small rooms in Jordan’s home. But with a garden, for your father.”
“My father?” she whispered, her love flowering another blossom.
“Of course your father, our family.” He leaned down, kissed the curve of her face. “Judith, what little I have will be yours. And I will love you all my life, whether you’ll have me or no.”
He was warm. Much too warm for his coat. He might sicken, wearing it. Judith lifted it off his shoulders. It fell to the ground at their feet, the scarf following, unwhirling like a dance from his hands. Did this man do anything without grace?
“I don’t understand how Prescott Lyman sees you,” he whispered against the strands of hair that had escaped her cap. “But I desire you whole, my sweet, strong Judith, I delight in you whole.”
She drank in his leather and cinnamon and minnow scent, before he lifted her there, against the willow’s trunk. Her feet dangled, suspended. He was not the tallest of men, but he was that tall, her Ethan. That strong.
He teased her with tiny kisses at her ear, then down her neckline. “If you will have me, I will take you down,” he confided between them. “The first time we join our bodies will be like this, within the sound of water. And the world around will turn red and bursting with delight. This I promise you, Judith Mercer.”
Judith felt invaded by the rush of his words. As his fingers gently danced down her spine, curved out along her breech, she welcomed him closer, closer even than he’d been on the quilt at Windover. She loved the glide of his tongue, the low snarl of his desire. She called his name softly against the head of dark waves pressed to her pounding heart. Something burst inside her with the sound. Burst open. Yes, she knew that feeling. She stroked the mane back from his brow, feeling satiated, languid. Sweet ear. She must have a taste. Her tongue swiped the lobe. “Mmmm. Honeysuckle,” she remembered that part of the taste of him, from the quilt at Windover. He must have been working among the honeysuckle shoots. She tasted again.
He growled.
“Dieu,
Judith, don’t do that.”
“It pleases thee not?”
“It pleases me too much.”
“I wish to please thee too much.”
There. Again it started. His palms at her hips, this time, circling. She parted her legs and felt his heat glide over her skirts and contend with sweet insistence against her thigh. Once, twice. Surges of his young, vital desire, leaving her wet, wanting the further intimacy these things he was doing promised. He muttered in garbled French. Beautiful, as beautiful as endearments, were his blasphemies.
He released her with a gentle, exquisite kiss, and set her on the ground again. As her feet landed, he braced his elbows against the willow’s bark. He forced his body back, though it remained hovering close as he found his voice.
“You’ll … consider marrying me, then?” he asked.
She nodded, laughing, hiding her face in his chest. “I will.”
His thumb traced her hairline. “Then I must speak with your father.” He kissed her. “Today.” Deeper. “Now.” He picked up his coat, took a step away, then threw the garment over his arm, and crushed her against the tree again, assailing her already swollen lips with fresh kisses.
He growled with mock menace before he kissed into the palm of her hand. “Finish your pies,” he said. “But no more lemons until the wedding, yes, Judith?”
With the last rustle of his footsteps, Judith felt herself glide along the willow’s trunk to the ground. She touched her tender bottom lip, felt the slight, glowing rash his afternoon beard had made along her neck. And down farther. My.
Ethan Blair Randolph loved her. He was not a rich Virginia dilettante. He’d come, respectful of her people, armed with his apprenticeship, the promise of a trade—all of which he’d said he’d do. And with one thing he’d never promised, his own mobility. Why did it all seem like such a miracle? Because, she realized, she had never believed it. She had never believed that Judith Mercer was worthy of such happiness. But here it was, offered by this wondrous man, after all the years alone.
Her breasts tingled, as if he were still pressing that beautiful tapestried vest against her homespun. She hugged herself, unashamed of the curves of her shoulder, her breasts, that her lover found so beautiful. He never lied. She was beautiful, then.
Physician. Of course, Ethan would transform those sailmender’s hands into those of a physician. Her father would have a garden. Judith’s hand glided down to her middle. And, perhaps, a legacy. Did she
dare wonder if she could have a child to mend her father’s heart, to give her sweet young husband joy? Was that a true vision of her Inner Light?
“Ah, Ethan!” Eli Mercer welcomed him. “Thee has tasted Judith’s
bounty already!”
Ethan felt a blush starting to flame his face.
“No colorful excuses now, the scent is all over thee!”
Judith’s father steadied the tulip poplar seedling next to its stake. He laughed, shaking his head. “It is not an offense to me, son, to be a young man, hungry for her delights.”
The blush reached his scalp now. Eli Mercer continued his work. Did Judith inherit her serenity from him? Ethan wondered. He’d felt the core of hers when he’d kissed her. It helped him feel rooted, even as the heated blood was pulsing in his veins.
Her father’s serenity had its own life too, infused by his lively curiosity. Was he another interesting oddity to this gentle, generous man? Ethan wondered. Eli looked up from his task.
“Loan me thy finger, will thee, son?”
Ethan crouched beside the small tree, his gift, which had weathered its journey from Virginia and now thrived under the botanist’s care. Eli looped the string around Ethan’s finger as he held the stake.
“I have written your suggestions on liming the soil to my mother to convey to Elwood,” Ethan told Judith’s father. “He is already noting good results in turning the tobacco soil to food crops.”
“And the lad’s health?”
“Much improved.”
“This speaks well for thee, Ethan, this concern for thy father’s bondsmen. Out now, please.”
“Out?”
“Thy finger?”
“Oh.” Ethan pulled his finger from the knot.
“Why, thy hands resemble Jordan Foster’s,” Eli observed.
Ethan smiled, pleased. “I am his apprentice, after all.” He remembered when he’d said similar words about Fayette.
“Thee has been fortunate in thy teachers. Now, sit, sit. A grand place here at sunset, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“How pleasing that thee joins me in observing its glory. I hope this shady vale becomes a place where one comes to strengthen the soul, once I am gone. Is it presumptuous? To think I might leave this earth better than before I came?”
“You’ve done that already. You’ve left Judith.”
“Why, Ethan, what a splendid thing to say.”
“I love Judith, Eli.” He pulled apart a crackled leaf from the autumn before. “I would marry with her, if she’ll have me.”
The botanist stood. He began gathering his tools.
Ethan raised his head. “Did you hear me? Do you understand?”
Eli stopped. “Does thee think when age is in, wit is out?”
“That’s Shakespeare,” Ethan realized with a shock.
“Your gift of his book of sonnets was not my first introduction to the poet. I spent some years disowned by my Meeting. In that time forayed into decidedly secular literature.”
“You were disowned?”
“When I was thy age, the revolution was raging. I became what was later termed a Fighting Quaker.”
“Eli. You fought in the revolution?”
“Is it hard to imagine such a thing?”
“Yes.”
“Always the truth from thee.” Eli Mercer chuckled, shaking his head. “Thee will have to rely on that fine imagination to picture me, then, Valley Forge to Yorktown. Afterward, I expressed my remorse, was forgiven. Then I married Esther—”
“Esther,” Ethan breathed.
“Has Judith never told thee her mother’s name?”
“Never anything of her childhood. You once said it was marred, remember?”
The old man winced, as Judith did sometimes when Ethan sensed a memory he’d summoned pained her. “It is time, past time to tell thee why, my dear Washington. Thy generous heart will not find it difficult to forgive her omission. Judith was our firstborn, followed by two boys and two little girls.”
“Brothers, sisters.” Ethan felt his heart expand as he imagined
smaller Judiths, and two Hughs to teach fishing. Where were they? Where were these children?
“Yes. Until a Tory soldier I’d fought made his way down from Canada one night, years later. He’d had a farm close by ours, Ethan. He was ruined by the war. Like most of the Loyalists, he lost his land, afterward. He emigrated to Canada, where his family died of sickness, hardship. The night he returned, with the remnants of the men who’d been under his command … Well, thee can see I was the most likely target.”
“Target? Why? How?”
“I’d bought his acres. I was prosperous following the war. Even after I’d freed my bond servants to demonstrate my new piety to the members of my Meeting.”
“Eli,” Ethan called, as if he wished to be shaken out of a dream, “what happened?”
Eli Mercer’s face lost all of the humor Ethan thought lived there. He looked, for the first time, old. “If I’d been home earlier that night, I alone might have borne the rage. Perhaps then they wouldn’t have suffered so.”
Ethan felt an iron claw clutch his insides. “Suffered? Did Judith suffer?”
“She suffered worst of all, son. For she walked in on the blood, the stilled bodies of her brothers and sisters—executed with military dispatch. And my wife, less … clean, for she’d fought her murderers for the children’s lives. My future, my family, gone. Only I was left, hanging in the chimney, still kicking at the walls, though my life was swiftly taking its leave. Judith, my little Judith, she climbed those stone walls. Imagine that, a wee girl of twelve? She cut me down.”
Ethan felt the blood drain from his tingling fingers. His head dropped into his hands.
“Down. That’s right—between thy knees, child,” Eli soothed, rubbing the back of Ethan’s neck with his cool, soil-dampened fingers. “Forgive me. I didn’t imagine thee could endure all thee has, to go frail at our story.”
Ethan lifted his head, blinked away the last of the purple spots impatiently. “Where are these men?” he demanded.
“They were pursued by the authorities, of course. They took a stand. All but one was killed. He disappeared, despite repeated inquiries on both sides of the Canadian border.”
“I will find him, the one left. I will kill him.”
“My dear Ethan, there has been too much killing already. Begun by my sin. Does thee not see the spiral?”
“I see danger.”
“Danger? After all these years?”
“You did not lose your future, Eli Mercer. You had Judith. You are not safe. She is not safe.”
“Ethan, listen. Sit beside me. Please.”
Ethan hardly realized he was standing in his agitation, tense and wary from the prickly air around them. When he sat, Eli Mercer’s hand took a hold on his shoulder.
“I have felt this way, on occasion. Most recently, since we returned to our country from England. Perhaps it contributed to my illness, the foreboding, the worry for Judith. I do not wish to drive it into thee, my dear boy.”
“Tell me the rest,” Ethan demanded. “Tell me everything.”
“Judith was my life, after,” Eli began quietly. “She is still. Her hair went white within a year, and she began receiving her visions. She began speaking out at Meeting, too, then was moved to her missions. It’s been a glorious time, Ethan. That’s why I was spared, I think, to help her in her ministry.
“I thought we would continue the way we had, in the twenty years since that terrible night. Until our homecoming on board the
Standard.
I felt a shifting then, a change in her starting. Before meeting thee, she was becoming a Light, a cool blue spirit. To me, perhaps even to herself. Now I see the part of her she’s kept submerged.”
“She has her Light still,” Ethan protested.
The older man’s grasp on Ethan’s shoulder warmed. “Yes. And purpose, missions. As does thee, and us all. But, Ethan, Judith missed her childhood. She was robbed of her youth, her frolicsome time, by that night. She began to understand that as she ministered to thee, who suffered too, so young—”
“So I, the bitter reminder, should now go away?”
“No, no, my dear Washington. Thee does not perceive my meaning! Listen. Thee has been robbed as well. And survived, whole, a fine Child of thy Light. Parts of thy memory were cut away, weren’t they? Judith knew to stay until thee was restored. She did stay at Windover for thee, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“It’s thy turn to minister to her need. That is how I see it.”
Ethan tried to hide his smile behind a look of imperious scorn. “Eli Mercer, are you saying I have some obligation toward this woman?”
“I’m saying plodding, calculating Prescott Lyman wishes to marry a sister spirit who will help him raise his deceased helpmeet’s children.
He is not interested in a woman. Thee has never seen her as anything but that emerging woman who is my glorious Judith.”
“Eli, should she have me, the Meeting will not approve of our marriage, will it? She will be shunned?”
“Sat upon.”
“Sat—?”
“It means ‘disowned.’ Gently, of course.”
“Forever?”
“Until she says she is sorry, and leaves thee.” He grinned. “A route is open to her return. Always. Now the prospect of this possibility might keep thee on thy toes as her helpmeet, yes?”
Was it possible? Ethan wondered. Was Judith’s father teasing him? Did he have Eli Mercer’s approval of his courtship?
“If Judith’s Light tells her to choose me as her husband, but she will be disowned for doing so, how can she follow her Light and remain a Quaker, too?”
“Puzzling, isn’t it?”
Ethan ran his hand through his hair. “It eats itself.”
“Just so! Know this. The Inner Light is the final arbiter.”
“She will remain a Quaker, though the Meeting disowns her?”
“My daughter will know what she is. She will always know, don’t fear for her in that, son.” His face sobered. “Ethan, a split in our Society is coming, I fear. Over what to do about slavery, over public testimony. If the Meeting isn’t all of her life, the way it has been these many years, if she’s standing outside, a friend of the Friends, with thee—it might not destroy her so. I know this: My daughter must follow her Light. Perhaps her next mission is herself.”
Yes. There was no doubt. This gentle man with scars of his own would not stand in their way.
“Plant the rest of your trees, Eli,” Ethan commanded. “You’ll have to do your best with a smaller plot in a town physician’s garden.”
The man’s eyes lit. “Does thee mean, I might be welcome—?”
“Judith will have enough changes—putting up with me, and that bad-tempered Boston physician, and closer living in town. You will join us there, won’t you?”
Eli frowned. “Closer living? I have kept my botanicals alive in rooftop gardens in the foul London air, child,” he protested, feigning insult. “Make thyself useful, landlocked sailor. Fetch me some water, so I can leave this place better than I found it.”
Ethan fought the urge to salute Eli Mercer, before he took the proffered buckets. A soldier in the Revolution, his Quaker father-in-law had
been. Like the uncle Ethan was named for. He wanted to hear more about that. And how had Eli Mercer managed to free his slaves and remain prosperous? Ethan desired to do the same for Windover. He would, someday, to keep his wife from regretting the Quaker price of loving him, and for the sheer pleasure of watching his brother Aaron’s children walking unbowed.
Once he’d filled the buckets at the well, Ethan swung them in an arch over his head to see if all of the water would stay inside. A child’s game. He was going to become a husband. He should be showing Eli he was a worthy son-in-law, not dallying as he climbed the hill.
He pictured Judith’s father laughing at his concern, and calling his play an experiment in scientific method, perfectly sound and useful. The image was interrupted suddenly by an unnamed terror. He heard a garbled cry. The buckets dropped from his grip. “Eli!” he answered it, before he forced his feet forward in a faltering gait that was as close as he could come to running.
E
li Mercer was almost in the same place Ethan had left him—close by the young Virginia tulip poplar tree, which was down, its delicate trunk broken, its stakes pulled out, the dark, rich earth scattered. Judith’s father clutched one of the stakes. His fingernails scratched frantically on the wood’s surface. Writing. Ethan looked there, at glyphs whose meaning he didn’t understand. Then he followed along the arm. Red. So much blood. Everywhere.
He dropped to his knees, coming down too hard on the bad one. He needed to feel the pain, he was going numb with his terror. He reached into the carnage, pulling torn clothes, pale skin together. No good. None of it was doing any good. Chest. Opened at the breastbone. Spouting blood overwhelmed his efforts. His eyes clouded with tears.
Not time. Not time yet for grief,
he told himself.
Tend.
There was life yet, and senses. Eyes, ears, tortured breathing. Eli had struggled hard to defend himself. His would not be the dispatched death of his little ones.