The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (4 page)

Tamsen moved toward her stepfather’s proffered arm. Never mind
she
had been waiting nigh the day long, too sick with dread to force a bite of food past her lips. Such a notion wouldn’t register with her stepfather. Nor with Ambrose Kincaid, she was willing to wager. Fully prepared to loathe the man, she touched her fingertips to her stepfather’s coat sleeve.

At the front door, Mr. Parrish glanced at her and frowned. “Smile,” he said.

Tamsen smiled. Braced to be paraded through Morganton in all her finery, she stepped across the threshold, wondering as she did so whether those mute lambs Scripture mentioned ever screamed on the inside when they saw the altar.

No one could have been more astonished than Tamsen when, moments after setting eyes on Ambrose Kincaid, her internal screaming ceased.
Not an ogre, after all
had been her first grudging admission as she passed between benches in her rustling silk and he’d risen to stare like a man vision struck.

Mr. Kincaid went on staring while her stepfather barreled into formal introductions. Finally the man blinked, very nicely thanked Mr. Parrish, and requested they be left alone to conversate. With thinly veiled reluctance, Mr. Parrish complied, leaving Tamsen to settle her stomach, gather her wits, and bring herself to bear on making a favorable impression on this man her stepfather meant her to marry.

Seated at a secluded table—within sight of Mr. Parrish, if not hearing—and served what Tamsen admitted was a respectable cup of tea, Mr. Kincaid had yet to look away from her. His Adam’s apple bobbed above a neat cravat as he swallowed. “Miss Littlejohn, forgive my boldness in declaring you more beautiful than your portrait promised. I did not think that possible.”

It was a pretty thing to say, made prettier by his refined Virginia accent. No matter, she supposed, that it was utter nonsense.

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Kincaid.” Tamsen thought better of saying she found his looks less displeasing than she’d feared. His hair was unfortunate—blazing red—but his eyes were a clear and pleasing blue. He wore a waistcoat fancifully embroidered with dragonflies but had paired it with a coat of sober green that complemented his coloring. He took some thought for his appearance, but not excessively so.

Angling a glance across the taproom, she spared her stepfather a small but genuine smile—and almost laughed at the startlement on his face.

Mr. Kincaid had begun telling her of his business in North Carolina, something to do with a parcel of mountain land on the Yadkin River, left to him by … She reined in her attention in time to realize he spoke of his father.

“… buried him late this spring, at Long Meadows.”

“Long Meadows?” she asked.

“My plantation on the James River, near Lynch’s Ferry—Lynchburg, it’s now called.” He smiled then. “Truth be told, it belongs to Alexander Kincaid, my grandfather. It shall be mine, though I admit it already owns my heart.”

“It certainly has a lovely name.” It was out of her mouth before she realized she ought first to have acknowledged his father’s passing, a recent and tragic loss, however well Mr. Kincaid concealed his grief. But his face lit at her praise of his plantation.

“It is the most beautiful tract on God’s earth,” he said, and went on to speak at length of acreage, crops, river frontage. And slaves. “We’ve eleven Negroes to the house alone, counting those in the kitchen. It is a comfortable home, Miss Littlejohn.”

Comfortable. It began to seem an abominable word. A comfortable cage was yet a cage. Tamsen schooled her face to pleasant interest. “Then you’ve no plans to homestead above the Yadkin?”

Mr. Kincaid’s russet brows rose. “None at all. The land’s gone too long untended. What improvements my uncle once made are hardly to be distinguished from the wilderness encroaching upon it now.”

“Your uncle? I thought your father …” Warmth crept into her cheeks, having revealed her earlier inattention.

If he noticed, Mr. Kincaid overlooked her lapse. “Yes, my uncle, but I see I have failed to make the situation clear. My only excuse, Miss Littlejohn, is that your presence has me thoroughly rattled.”

Or perhaps the scanty kerchief was working, she thought, as his gaze dipped below the level of her throat.

Blushing now in earnest, Tamsen glanced around. Few of Mrs. Brophy’s patrons were within hearing. Mr. Kincaid had chosen a table secluded by the placement of a tall cupboard. Still she could see nearly the whole taproom. Her glance snagged on a man standing at the rear door, a young mulatto who was scanning the room. He caught her gaze, which she quickly returned to Mr. Kincaid, to whom she said what her stepfather would have wanted her to say at this pass.

“Do forgive me. It was never my intent to rattle you so.”

She smiled. Ambrose Kincaid’s jaw fell slack.

Mr. Parrish would like the way this was progressing. How unfortunate for him that he must sit at a distance and wait—on
her
. She felt the sparkle that thought put in her eyes.

“Let me attempt to clarify,” Mr. Kincaid said, back in possession of his jaw. “The homestead was originally my uncle’s. Bryan Kincaid was my father’s younger brother. I’m sorry to say there was bad blood between the two. Uncle Bryan and his wife, Fiona, left Long Meadows to homestead above the Yadkin in … ’63 or ’64, it was. Just after the French war.”

Tamsen leaned forward, clasping the table’s fringed cloth. “What happened to him? Your uncle?”

“He died. He and his wife. It fair broke my grandfather’s heart.”

Tamsen sat back. “How very tragic. How did they die?” she asked, feigning neither sympathy nor interest. Mr. Kincaid seemed flattered by both.

“That is still a mystery. Neighbors said it was raiding Indians, but we cannot be sure. Uncle Bryan took along one of my grandfather’s slaves when he left Virginia. Theo, his name was. My father particularly despised him—which wouldn’t of itself offer any proof of wrongdoing on Theo’s part. But it is true that after Bryan’s and Fiona’s deaths, Theo was never heard from again.” Mr. Kincaid paused, leaning across the table. “Miss
Littlejohn, would your stepfather approve the lurid topic of our conversation, could he hear it?”

The glint of conspiratorial humor in his eyes gave Tamsen a small thrill. “He most certainly wouldn’t, but never mind him. Is there more to your uncle’s story?”

“Only that Uncle Bryan surprised everyone by leaving his land to my father, after having quarreled so bitterly in the past. My father had grand plans for it once upon a time, but of course he never followed through. I’m amazed he never sold the tract. But I shall. What need have I of it when there is Long Meadows to hold me to Virginia?” He paused again, holding her gaze. “I think you would like it there.”

His eyes were telling her he wanted her to like it. She thought she liked the man. At least she didn’t loathe him as she’d feared. “Your father passed just this spring? I’m sorry for your loss.”

“You needn’t be,” Mr. Kincaid replied abruptly. He must have seen her startlement. “I beg your pardon. That must sound a terrible thing to say, especially when clearly you once lost a father.”

Surprised by the observation, she said, “When I was seven years old.”

“And you admired him?”

“He was the light of our lives, mine and Mama’s.”

Mr. Kincaid reached across the table and took her hand with a boldness that stole her breath. His eyes were very blue and disconcertingly direct. “I envy you that, Miss Littlejohn. My father, in contrast, was a man to engender neither admiration nor respect. Collin Kincaid was a drunkard who brought grief to father, brother, and sons alike. I daresay most egregiously to my mother, God rest her soul. But this one good he did me—he left me land in Carolina, which in turn has brought me to you.”

Tamsen saw the turning of his thoughts in his eyes, felt it in the pressure of his hand. Her stomach gave a lurch. This time her heart matched it. It was what her stepfather wanted, why she was here. She simply hadn’t expected it to come to the boil so swiftly.

“Mr. Kincaid,” she began, but he was already speaking.

“I cannot be anything but forthright with you, Miss Littlejohn. When I saw your portrait in Salem, I was certain you couldn’t be half so beautiful, and if you were, you were bound to know it. It would have made you haughty, cold, to think all men your devoted worshipers. Instead, I find you nothing of the sort, but tender-hearted and warm. So I warn you, I am about to throw caution to the wind and—”

“Mast’ Ambrose. Sorry to trouble you now, sir.”

Like a fraying thread, the tension between them snapped. Tamsen looked up to find the young mulatto she’d noticed earlier standing at their table, battered hat clenched between work-scarred fingers. She looked to Mr. Kincaid. High color flamed in his face as, scowling, he said, “I asked not to be disturbed while I met with Miss Littlejohn. I was very clear.”

“I ain’t forgot, sir.” The slave’s hat was getting a thorough mangling. “But something—”

“Let it wait, Toby.” Dismissing his slave with an abrupt shoulder, Mr. Kincaid reached for her hand again.

But Toby hadn’t left, only taken a step behind his master, clearly too distressed to obey. Tamsen glanced across the taproom. Mr. Parrish had allowed himself to be engaged in conversation and wasn’t for the moment watching. “Please, Toby? Tell us what’s wrong.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Mouth trembling, the slave stepped forward. “It be Tess, Mast’ Ambrose. She done them errands you sent her on, but some men catched her on the way back, drug her off to the woods, and took turns—”

Mr. Kincaid lurched to his feet and backhanded Toby across the mouth. The slave cringed, eyes flaring with shock. His master’s face had gone chalk white. “How dare you speak such filth in front of Miss Littlejohn?”

Nearby conversations faltered while Mr. Kincaid, low voiced, ordered
Toby from the taproom and reclaimed his seat across from her. With a kerchief from his coat, he wiped his slave’s spittle off his hand.

Witnessing a lap cat transform into a panther and proceed to attack an unsuspecting passerby could not have been more shocking. Voices around them rose again, but Tamsen’s ears rang as if she’d been the one struck. She looked toward her stepfather. Somehow he’d missed the entire episode. She forced herself to face Mr. Kincaid. Her voice shook.

“You needn’t have done that. Didn’t you hear what he said? Your slave—”

“Hasn’t anything to do with us,” Mr. Kincaid finished for her.

“How can you say so? Of course she does.”

The true cause of her distress seemed finally to register: not the interruption, but his reaction to it. “Miss Littlejohn … I only meant
you
needn’t be concerned.”

“Yet I am—and you should be.” This wasn’t what she was meant to say now. She was meant to smile and nod and suppress whatever opinion she might hold on the matter. But she could not do it. “The people whose lives and bodies you own, those whose burden it is to see to your every need, they are your responsibility to protect.”

These were her mother’s words, spoken often in years past in timid counter to Mr. Parrish’s callous dealings with his slaves, but she wasn’t saying them in any tone of voice her mother had ever used.

“Yet you hear of such cruelty done to a woman you call your property and cannot be bothered to go to her aid? Because of
me
?” She stood so abruptly that her chair rocked back and would have hit the floor had she not caught it. “If I’m to be your excuse, Mr. Kincaid, then allow me to excuse myself from your presence. Please, go and see to her.”

The faces in the taproom were a blur, all turning to gape at her flight. At the door she glanced back to see her stepfather—very much aware of her again—hurrying to where Ambrose Kincaid still sat, staring after her more stunned than when she’d entered.

With the cattle down from the mountains, Cade and Jesse had parted with the drovers and now had only their mounts and the packhorses to manage. Or so Jesse had assumed. Turned out Cade was carrying around some peculiar notions in his head. Not till they’d reached Morganton, leading the horses, did he let on about them.

“What would you say to us getting a milch cow this trip—and some extra seed corn, more’n last year? I talked with Tate before we left. He don’t mind us planting another acre or two.”