Mountain Laurel

by Lori Benton

Warmed by the words, Ian lingered in the doorway after his uncle vanished down the narrow back stairs, until he caught the beginnings of a conversation not meant for his ears.

  “For heaven’s sake, Hugh, is he what you expected? That coat . . . that belt . . . a tomahawk?”

  Chilled by that cold dash, Ian shut the door and hung the offending garments on a peg behind it, where they were unlikely to incite further indignation.

  The room he’d been given belonged to the newer wing. Though smaller than those at the front of the house, it remained untouched by the zealous hand that had had its way belowstairs. The walls were plastered. A braided rug fronted a small fireplace. There was a high-post bed with hangings, a clothespress of rustic make, and a cylinder desk of more elegant design with a drawer that locked; he found the key.

  A spindle-backed chair and a washstand completed the furnishings.

  It had been weeks since he’d been shut within doors, having camped rather than hire lodging during his journey south from Boston. The room was stifling.

  Up went the window beside the desk.

  Bathed in a rush of warm but moving air, he stripped off the hunting shirt and flung the garment over a chair, then recalled he’d sent Thomas to fetch the bags and had nothing to change into. While he waited, the sweat drying on his skin, he took in what prospect the window afforded.

  Close by stood the kitchen, clapboarded and whitewashed, chimney smoking. Beyond it a wagon track curved between smaller outbuildings. It continued past the apple orchard, skirting a stand of oaks, under which a cluster of tiny cabins sprouted like toadstools. Slave cabins—servants’ quarters, as his aunt had called them. To the north of the house, cornfields, interspersed with stretches of broad-leafed tobacco, rolled up to the ridge in the west. Out in those distant rows tiny figures shimmered in the heat. His uncle’s field hands at work.

  A tap at the door announced the housemaid, Maisy, who entered bearing pitcher and basin. She set them on the washstand, then with a put-upon air, bent to retrieve his saddlebags from the passageway—deposited there by Thomas, presumably. Another mark against him in the maid’s opinion, he could tell.

  Ian hurried to the door before she could make a second trip and found his long rifle lying in the passage. He brought it into the room to find Maisy casting about as if for anything else left half-done. She frowned at the open window but made no comment.

  “I’ll have my girl, Esther, air the tick for you, Mister Ian, soon as supper’s past,” she said. “Speak of supper, Miss Lucinda likes folk to be prompt.”

  Mindful of his half-dressed state, Ian stowed his rifle behind the door, then gave the woman what he hoped was an engaging grin. “I’ve the impression Miss Lucinda generally has things arranged to her liking.”

  His teasing hadn’t the intended effect. Wariness sharpened the maid’s features before they went a careful blank. “Yes, sir. She do. When the bell ring, come on down to table.”

  She backed from the room, shutting the door between them.

  By the time Ian judged himself presentable as soap and water could render him, enticing smells had thickened on the air belling the window curtains inward. His stomach writhed as he smoothed back his hair and bound it with the least offensive of his ribbons, letting the tail curl over a neckcloth that felt noose-tight in the heat but lent him a semblance of respectability—every scrap of which he’d need if he meant to win over his uncle’s patently unimpressed wife.

  “‘First impressions being a vital thing,’” he quoted at the quill-free, slicked-down image of himself in the glass above the washbasin.

  He donned his only decent coat, a slate-blue specimen he’d brushed nearly clean.

  Hearing the scuff of shifted trunks across the passageway, he yanked the door inward and strode into the hall, intending to have a word with Thomas—and instead caught a passing forehead square on the point of his chin. The impact clashed his teeth together, with his tongue clamped between.

  “Uhn!” he said. So did his inadvertent casualty, a young woman. Her unpinned hair coiled in dark profusion over his coat sleeve as she staggered; he grabbed her to prevent a fall.

  “Are ye all right, miss?”

  Black lashes swept upward. Large, startled eyes caught the light spilling from his room—green eyes with flecks of amber at their centers. Eyes like the creek he’d just crossed, strewn with mossy pebbles, dazzled with reflected sunlight. He couldn’t look away from them.

  Gradually it dawned on him he ought to look away, that he was practically embracing the girl, to whom he’d yet to be introduced.

  He unwound his arms from her and stepped back, leaving her standing in the light from the bedchamber. He knew within two guesses who she must be, though she didn’t in the least resemble that cool, rigid lady belowstairs. Her complexion held a deep, sun-drenched luster. Her brow and cheekbones were wide, her nose long and high-bridged but not the least pinched. And that mouth . . . so full and boldly shaped he had the quite improper urge to kiss it.

  Bitten though it was, he found his tongue again. “Forgive me. I didn’t expect we’d meet ’til supper.” Grasping at the vestiges of his early education, he managed a proper bow. “Ian Cameron, your servant—and, happily, your cousin by marriage as well.”

  The creek-water eyes stared at him unblinking.

  “Ye’ll be Miss Bell,” he continued, thinking her shy as well as lovely. “But is it Rosalyn or . . . ?” What was the other one called? His mind had blanked.

  Those vivid eyes rounded, but before his cousin could speak, another voice cut through the moment.

  “Seona! Get down to the kitchen and quit pestering Master Hugh’s kin.” It was Maisy, the housemaid who’d brought the water, scowling up from the stairwell.

  Rich color flooded the girl’s cheeks, but Ian for the first time noticed something beyond her face. The bodice of her gown was stained, the cuffs at her elbows bedraggled. More so the hem of her petticoat.

  “Begging your pardon, Mister Ian,” she said, dipping a slight, apologetic curtsy, as if she felt at fault for their collision.

  Ian was struck by the low, melodic quality of her voice—and the fact that she wore no shoes. Dirty bare feet flashed as she hurried down the stairs, leaving him tugging at a neckcloth now unbearably tight. What had the housemaid called her? It had sounded like Shona.

  Not the name of either of his uncle’s stepdaughters.

  A throat cleared behind him. In the doorway to the storeroom, Thomas stood with arms crossed, convulsed in silent mirth.

  “How long have ye been standing there?” Ian demanded.

  “Long enough.”

  “Long enough to watch me play the fool. Why didn’t ye stop me?”

  “Too busy having myself a look.” From below came the promised summons of a bell. Thomas drew near, frowning at Ian’s throat. “You’ve a stain—not to worry,” he added when Ian swore. Thomas tugged at the neckcloth, refolded it, then stood back to inspect him. “There. Least now you look the part.”

  “And ye’d best start acting it.” Sweat beaded Ian’s brow, not all of it due to the heat. Thomas had removed his coat but hadn’t washed. Had anyone thought to provide the means? “There’s water in the pitcher, yonder in my room. Help yourself. Ye’ll find your way to the kitchen, see what they’re serving up?”

  “Any dog can follow his nose.” Thomas raised his chin, sniffed, then met Ian’s gaze as no slave would his master’s.

  “We need to talk, Thomas. About a lot of things.”

  “You fret like a hen with one chick. Best worry about yourself.” Thomas leaned closer. “For in case you’ve failed to notice, what they’re serving up presently is you.”

  Ian tested his bitten tongue against his teeth. “Aye, well. Pray there’s enough to go around.”

  Brown eyes glinting with a familiar light, Thomas whispered, “Aonaibh ri chéile.”

  Taken by surprise, Ian laughed. He’d half forgotten the rallying cry the two of them had used as lads bent on
mischief in Boston’s winding, cobbled streets. The old Gaelic motto of Clan Cameron: Let us unite.

  2

  Seona ducked out the back of the big house and raced down the trellised breezeway, sidestepping Esther emerging from the kitchen with the gravy bowl.

  “Seona! Miss Lucinda gonna scold, we keep Mister Ian waiting on his supper.”

  “You know who’s bound to keep him waiting,” Seona replied. “It ain’t you and me.”

  Esther batted her lashes like she was ogling herself in a glass, then giggled over the gravy as she hurried off. Seona paused inside the kitchen door, sensing the bustle within before her eyes could adjust to see.

  Naomi’s bulk passed across the fire’s glow. “Get in here, child. Esther can’t tote the whole meal herself.”

  Seona passed behind her mama, who was arranging apple fritters on a plate. Lily’s hair was coiled up smooth under her cap, her face agleam in the kitchen’s heat. “Ye’re flushed as a ripe strawberry, Seona. Where’d ye run off to?”

  “Up to our room.” Not for the first time Seona wished herself as coppery brown as her mama so her blushes wouldn’t show for the world to see. He’d thought she was his kin, which meant he must be half-blind now. A pity. He had such pretty eyes. Still blue as a jay’s wing.

  Since she and Esther got called in from the field, she’d been in motion, helping with the chopping, roasting, boiling, and baking. Finally she’d snatched a space and raced up to the garret to do what she’d itched to do since hearing their company named—have herself a look at that likeness she made of the boy who came to visit, all those years back.

  “Ain’t nobody meant to be dashing about in this heat.” Naomi paused in salting pole beans to blot her streaming face.

  “Girl-baby,” Lily said, “ye went all the way to the garret and didn’t think to put up your hair?”

  Only then did she realize. Her braid had come undone! When she collided in the passage with Mister Ian? Or before?

  “How many times Lily got to tell you that? Miss Lucinda might call you in to help Maisy serve.” Shaking her turbaned head, Naomi snatched a clean apron off a sideboard and thrust it at her. “Put this on, then wash your hands. Can’t have prints on the dishes.”

  Apron donned, Seona dipped her hands in a washbowl while Naomi plunged sturdy fingers into her curls and set to braiding.

  His hair had changed, gone a rich, dark gold with only streaks left of the spun-flax shade it used to be. From across the worktable her mama was eyeing her. She hoped Lily couldn’t see how her mind was stuck on the sight of Mister Ian grown up tall and wide-shouldered, with his hair tamed down so the only part left curling was the tail. His smile was like she minded, wide above that chin with its tiny dip in the center, like an angel brushed it with a wingtip before his bones had set. Otherwise the rounded face in her drawing had vanished, swallowed up by the lean flesh and strong bones of a man’s face.

  A final yank to her scalp stung her eyes, but she was too distracted to protest. “Did y’all see him?”

  “Had us a glimpse when he come up to the house.” Naomi retied her apron strings, then pushed Seona toward the dishes bound for the warming room. “Looking like a wildcat out the woods.”

  “He’s grown into those gangly limbs,” Lily added.

  “He has,” Seona agreed as Esther rushed in, sweating and bothered.

  “What’s holding you up, Seona?”

  “My knees, I reckon.” Seona wrapped a towel around a steaming crock, plunked a kiss atop Esther’s cap, and hurried out.

  On the last trip from the house Seona saw the other new arrival sitting on a bench in the breezeway down at the kitchen end, half-hid by trellis canes heavy with cream-pink roses. She took her time coming along, wanting to get herself a proper view of this new man come with Mister Ian, who obliged by leaning out from behind the roses to get a look at her.

  Striped stockings—fine ones that didn’t bag—pewter-buckled shoes, and a coat colored like a newborn fawn, fit like it was made for him. He was dandied up more than any serving man she’d seen save the coach drivers at Chesterfield. His skin was middling dark, jaw bony, ears small and set close to a skull nicely shaped. His eyebrows weren’t more than a sprinkle of hairs, but his smile was lively and his teeth white and she could tell he thought himself a pleasing sight to behold. He wasn’t wrong.

  Standing at her approach, still smiling, he said, “Not that I don’t find the present view filling in its way, but how’s a hungry man meant to get himself a sampling of those vittles I been smelling?”

  Seona halted with a hand to her hip. “That man can sit himself back on that bench and wait for what’s coming to him. Supper back of the house today is pone and pot likker. Reckon your master feeds you better?”

  She was used to puzzlement in the eyes of enslaved or free when they got their first look at her, like what came into Mister Ian’s eyes when he realized who she wasn’t. This one’s eyes were different. They sparkled, as if he knew some private jest—concerning her.

  “No, ma’am. I’m accustomed to johnnycake—if that’s what you mean by pone.”

  She relaxed in the face of his good humor. Judging by his accent, he was a long way from home, wherever that had been. Maybe he’d left a wife or little ones behind. Likely he’d be anxious to find his way into their circle, feel it close round him. If he reckoned his master was come to stay.

  “Well then, what are you called?”

  “You can call me Thomas. And what do I call you, missy ma’am?”

  “Save ma’am for your master’s kin. I’m plain Seona.”

  “I take issue with you being plain anything.” He broadened his smile, making her revise her speculations about a wife. “But what sort of name is Sho-nuh? You got a back name to go with that?”

  A back name? Of all the cheek. He hadn’t known what to make of her after all, fishing about with his missy and ma’am. This man of Mister Ian’s had to be uppity as the day was long. Or none too bright. “It’s the name my mama gave me, and no, I don’t. Now sit like I told you. By and by I’ll bring you out a plate.”

  He sat quick, like she might scold worse if he didn’t. “Yes, ma’am—I mean, Seona.”

  As she swung away, he grabbed the end of her braid. Seona tugged it free but, as she ducked into the kitchen, felt her wayward hair unraveling again.

  “Cousin, you’ve barely eaten enough to satisfy a bird. We thought you’d be ravenous for a decent meal after your journey. Didn’t we, Judith?”

  Rosalyn Bell didn’t glance aside at her younger sister as she spoke. Neither did Ian. He was too busy noting the candle flames mirrored in eyes the exact blue of the cornflowers bedecking the table’s chinaware. The elder Miss Bell, who’d captured his attention the moment she glided into the dining room, was the antithesis of the girl he’d collided with abovestairs. Golden-haired and softly rounded, she wore a rose-hued gown cut to reveal an eye-catching expanse of bosom, swelling above a waist nipped in so tight his hands might have spanned it.

  “Might we tempt you with an apple fritter? Papa Hugh said you couldn’t eat your fill when you visited years ago.”

  “I’m sure I did my best.” Sharing the collective chuckle at his expense, Ian accepted the pastry and took a bite. Rosalyn watched approvingly, a dimple flashing in her cheek. Ian chewed, all but drowning in the blue of her gaze.

  “Aye, Judith. Your cousin did arrive bedecked with an Indian tomahawk. Perhaps he’ll tell ye how he came by it.”

  Catching the end of his uncle’s prompting remark, Ian realized the other sister had addressed him. Rather plain, just shy of eighteen, Judith Bell might have passed for a girl much younger. She’d taken pains to coil her finer, light-brown hair like her sister’s shining curls, but the damp heat permeating the house had wilted them into straggles on her narrow shoulders.

  Ian swallowed his mouthful and smiled at her. “I’ve brought along a few mementos of my years among the Chippewa. Fancy a keek at them after supper, would
ye?”

  Judith bobbed her head, blushing and beaming. Like her sister, the lass had pretty teeth. She was less plain when she smiled.

  “With such unrest among the northern tribes,” Uncle Hugh said, snagging Ian’s attention, “were ye no’ of some trepidation venturing among them?”

  Ian cleared his throat. They were dangerously close to what he’d meant to share with the man earlier. Privately. The great scandal of their family that had sent him, barely eighteen at the time, to the wilds of Upper Canada with his mother’s younger brother, Callum Lindsey. It was Callum, five years later, who’d carted Ian back to Boston, in danger of losing his leg to wound fever. Ian was hazy now on the timing of those events back in spring, but he minded Callum at his bedside telling him of a second chance to settle in Carolina, to put disgrace behind him.

  A grip on his arm, a muttered prayer, and he’d seen no more of the kinsman who for five years had been his refuge. Callum had left him behind. So he’d taken Hugh Cameron up on his offer. Another uncle. Another refuge. Far from a disappointed father.

  “I wouldn’t have gone alone, sir,” Ian told that uncle now. “I had Mam’s brother watching out for me. But aye, there’s unrest enough in the region with the British refusing to relinquish their forts and so many settlers pushing west. It can be a challenge to run a trapline unmolested. No telling how long that life can last, but I don’t regret having lived it for a bit.”

  “How thrilling, Cousin.” Rosalyn tilted her head, sending a cluster of curls swinging against her slender neck. “Though for all its adventure I cannot see how you brought yourself to quit a city like Boston for the society of savages.”

  The room was stifling. All attention was fixed upon Ian. Feeling a sudden affinity with the gravy-smothered chicken leg congealing on his plate, he replied, “At the time, life on the frontier presented less by way of . . . complications.”

  “Among the Indians?” Judith blurted. “I wouldn’t have supposed so.”

  Ian silently thanked her for the redirection. “D’ye know of our neighbors to the west, then?”