The Lacemaker

by Laura Frantz

  What?

  She began to walk toward the approaching figure, her heart picking up in rhythm. She felt oddly breathless, nearly tripping over a stone in a tuft of grass, her attention was so fixed on him. And he . . . he’d let go of the reins of his horse and was coming toward her as fast as his limp would let him. Over the greening grasses and then the tiny stream that meandered between rustling oaks.

  Her heart—her whole heart—turned over in such a poignant rush that all the strength seemed to leave her. ’Twas like being aboard the Sapphire when Noble had come to free her. His life for hers. Only now there were no soldiers. No slippery, wintry deck. No taint of salt water or treason. Just the two of them in the open meadow with the warm wind and fading sunset. She was running toward him full tilt, her hat dislodged and dangling down her back, her chin ribbons barely holding it.

  “Anwylyd,” he called. His voice held laughter and joy and a disbelief every bit as strong as hers.

  “Noble.” She kept saying it as if he would somehow vanish if she stopped, as if this was all a dream like the many she’d had of this day, this reunion.

  But the feel of his hard arms around her was real—and the distinct manly scent that was his alone and that she’d not forgotten but had craved day in and out during his absence.

  She was crying and laughing and talking in short bursts while he continued to hold her, appearing too moved to do anything much at all. And then . . .

  “I’ve come home. For good.”

  Their eyes met through a blur of emotion. Home. The finality of his words seemed a promise. For good. No more absences? No more separations?

  Cupping her chin in his roughened hands, he kissed her. Not the tentative kiss of their backward courtship but a wild, firm declaration of a new tie borne of love and loss and hard-won devotion.

  She could hardly take it in. “You’re free? How—when—”

  “Three days ago we stormed the hatch of the ship. ’Twas either that or face the fate of being moved to another prison ship or taken to parts unknown. There were more of us than the crew. I thank God the rash plan worked.”

  She touched his thigh. “But you’re hurt—”

  “I’ll mend. Not all were so fortunate.”

  She lay her head on his chest, taking in the rough homespun shirt he wore. “You might have been killed. I can’t believe you’re here, an answer to countless prayers.”

  “’Twas prayer alone that saw us through. We locked the crew in the hold and ran the Packhorse aground on an isolated beach in North Carolina. It took awhile for us to reach any sympathetic to our cause, but those of us who came away with only minor wounds were given food and clothes. I even managed to bathe and shave and borrow a horse.”

  “Very thankful for that. Does your commanding officer know? Any of your fellow Patriots?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to reach you first. Ascertain you were safe. See our firstborn.”

  “They’re asleep in the nursery with Isabeau and Mistress Tremayne near at hand—”

  “They?” His utter astonishment made her laugh.

  “Indeed. A perfect pairing. We shall wake them up. They need to meet their father.” A dozen more things clamored to be said, but she held her tongue, not wanting to overwhelm him with too much at once.

  They fell into step together, hand in hand, the faithful horse following. Toward Ty Bryn and Ty Mawr.

  Home. At long last.

  Epilogue

  TY BRYN

  OCTOBER 1776

  Twas the bitter that made the sweet all the sweeter.

  Now six months old, the twins were chewing on their fat fists as they sat in countless laps, their antics a source of endless delight. Rhian was even-tempered and oft smiling, her sole dimple on display, charming all of Ty Mawr down to the humblest stable lad. Ewen, Welsh for warrior, was indeed that. Tyrant of the nursery he was, Mistress Tremayne boasted, with a bit of fiery red in his dark hair. Ewen was his father’s pride as much as Rhian was his joy.

  “’Tis the workings of Providence that keeps me home with you at such a time as this,” Noble remarked as they walked through a scattering of autumn leaves down Ty Mawr’s lane. “I’ll not bemoan my injury, painful though it is.”

  “Providence—and our prayers—spared your life.” Still a bit disbelieving, she looked at their son in his father’s arms as she carried their daughter. “You can do just as much for liberty and the cause off the field as on it, now that you’ve been called to help draft the Articles of Confederation.”

  Patrick Henry and other Independence Men oft came by, and Liberty sometimes visited Williamsburg with Noble for meetings at the Raleigh. The folly had not been rebuilt, and she was glad to let it go, along with all its tarnished memories.

  “We’ll travel as a family to the next Continental Congress and stay with your mother in Philadelphia,” he told her, shifting Ewen in his arms.

  “Let’s not think yet of that. ’Tis so far in the future. Let’s savor the present, the coming holidays.” ’Twould be their first Christmas together at Ty Bryn. “Hard to believe just this time last autumn I was held aboard ship and you were on the field. What a difference a year makes.”

  “And next year? What shall it bring, do you think?”

  She squeezed his hand, content to dwell in the moment. “So long as we’re together, we four, it matters little.”

  “Well said, Libby.” He smiled, kissing the back of her hand. “Cael rhad Duw, cael y cyfan.”

  “Amen,” she said with deep contentment, taking his Welsh to heart. “To have God’s blessing is to have everything, indeed.”

  Fairy Butter

  Receipts (recipes) for fairy butter are found in cookbooks beginning in the mid-eighteenth century. In The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747), Hannah Glasse says it is “a pretty Thing to set of a Table at Supper”:

  Take the yolks of two hard eggs in a mortar with a large spoonful of orange flower water, and two tea spoonfuls of fine sugar beat to a powder; beat all together till it is a fine paste then mix it up with about as much fresh butter out of the churn and force it through a fine strainer full of little holes onto a plate.

  Bara Brith (Speckled Bread)

  Many recipes exist for this traditional Welsh bread. My favorite is the one I’ve adapted below. Some versions even call for tea as an ingredient! But I prefer tea with the speckled bread once it’s baked. The bread is simply wonderful sliced, toasted, and buttered.

  1 cup milk

  ¼ cup brown sugar, divided

  4 teaspoons yeast

  1 pound flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  3 ounces unsalted butter

  1 teaspoon allspice

  1 egg, beaten

  12 ounces mixed dried fruit

  In a saucepan, scald the milk and pour it in a bowl. Whisk in 1 teaspoon of the brown sugar and the yeast, then leave the bowl in a warm place for about 20 minutes. Sift the flour and salt into a separate large mixing bowl, then stir in the remaining sugar. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like fine bread crumbs. Stir in the allspice, add the beaten egg and scalded milk, and mix into a dough. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes. Return the dough to the bowl and cover. Leave in a warm place until it has risen and doubled in size, about an hour.

  Punch the dough down, then knead in the fruit. Grease a loaf pan with butter. Pat the dough into a rectangle shape, then roll it up from the short side and place it seam-side down in the loaf pan. Let it rise again for about 45 minutes.

  Preheat oven to 375°. Bake on the lowest rack for 30 minutes. Cool the loaf on a wire rack. Slice thinly.

  Acknowledgments

  While writing The Lacemaker, I came across something Pastor Chuck Swindoll said that has stayed with me: “Being totally committed to Christ’s increase . . . means letting our lives act as a frame that shows up the masterpiece—Jesus Christ. And a worthy frame isn’t tarnished or dull, plain or cheap; yet neither i
s it so elaborate that it overpowers its picture. Instead, with subtle loveliness, it draws the observer’s eye to the beautiful work of art it displays.”1 It is my ultimate hope that anything I write reflects the beauty of Christ, not my limited abilities as a storyteller. And I hope you as a reader sense the sweetness and nobleness I found in these pages and these characters while writing this particular novel.

  So many hands go into making a book. Heartfelt thanks to all—from my agent, Janet Grant, to my publishing house, Revell, to myriad booksellers. No contribution is small or wasted. I’m always in awe of the publishing process and still pinch myself after nine books!

  I invite you to enjoy another lacemaker’s story in A Refuge Assured by Jocelyn Green. Jocelyn and I had fun creating a tie between Vivienne and Liberty and their French ancestry in our newest novels, after discovering our heroines share a lovely and highly prized eighteenth-century skill!

  During the writing of every book, certain people come alongside to make the journey sweeter and the story stronger. Susan Marlene Kinney is one of those remarkable friends. She shares my love of the eighteenth century, colonial Williamsburg, fiction, and the Lord. I’m forever grateful for her sunny spirit, ongoing generosity, and timely encouragement. I see Christ when I look at her. She is a beautiful framework of our Savior.

  This book wouldn’t be possible without the existence of colonial Williamsburg, the College of William and Mary, Welsh-English helps, and many primary and secondary sources—too many to mention here. The more I study colonial life, the more I agree with Ronald W. Michener, an associate economics professor at the University of Virginia, who said, “Viewed from the twenty-first century, life in colonial America was like living on a different planet.” Yet for me as an author, this is exactly what makes this fascinating time period so rich and worthy of remembering, even in fiction.

  Lastly, heartfelt thanks to beloved readers who have embraced my books. As Philippians 1:3 says, I do thank my God upon every remembrance of you.

  1. Chuck Swindoll, quoted in Melinda Schmidt, Anita Lustrea, and Lori Neff, eds., Daily Seeds from Women Who Walk in Faith (Chicago: Moody, 2008), 30.

  1

  KENTUCKE TERRITORY, NOVEMBER 1779

  This is madness.

  Roxanna Rowan leaned against the slick cave entrance and felt an icy trickle drop down the back of her neck as she bent her head. Her right hand, shaky as an aspen leaf, caressed the cold steel of the pistol in her pocket. Being a soldier’s daughter, she knew how to use it. Trouble was she didn’t want to. The only thing she’d ever killed was a copperhead in her flower garden back in Virginia, twined traitorously among scarlet poppies and deep blue phlox.

  An Indian was an altogether different matter.

  The cave ceiling continued to weep, echoing damply and endlessly and accenting her predicament. Her eyes raked the rosy icicles hanging from the sides and ceiling of the cavern. Stalactites. Formed by the drip of calcareous water, or so Papa had told her in a letter. She’d never thought to see such wonders, but here she was, on the run from redskins and Redcoats in the howling wilderness. And in her keep were four fallen women and a mute child.

  They were huddled together farther down the cavern tunnel, the women’s hardened faces stiff with rouge and fright. Nancy. Olympia. Dovie. Mariah. And little Abby. All five were looking at her like they wanted her to do something dangerous. Extending one booted foot, she nudged the keelboat captain. In the twilight she saw that the arrow protruding from his back was fletched with turkey feathers. He’d lived long enough to lead them to the mouth of the cave—a very gracious gesture—before dropping dead. Thank You, Lord, for that. But what on earth would You have me do now? A stray tear leaked from the corner of her left eye as she pondered their predicament.

  The Indians had come out of nowhere that afternoon—in lightning-quick canoes—and the women had been forced to abandon the flatboat and flee in a pirogue to the safer southern shore, all within a few miles of their long-awaited destination. Fort Endeavor was just downriver, and if they eluded the Indians, they might reach it on foot come morning. Surely a Shawnee war party would rather be raiding a vessel loaded with rum and gunpowder than chasing after five worthless women and a speechless child.

  “Miz Roxanna!” The voice cast a dangerous echo.

  Roxanna turned, hesitant to take her eyes off the entrance lest the enemy suddenly appear. Her companions had crept farther down the tunnel, huddled in a shivering knot. And then Olympia shook her fist, her whisper more a shout.

  “I’d rather be took by Indians than spend the night in this blasted place!”

  There was a murmur of assent like the hiss of a snake, and Roxanna plucked her pistol from her pocket. “Ladies,” she said, stung by the irony of the address. “I’d much rather freeze in this cave than roast on some Indian spit. Now, are you with me or against me?”

  The only answer was the incessant plink, plink, plink of water. Turning her back to them, she fixed her eye on the ferns just beyond the cave entrance, studying the fading scarlet and cinnamon and saffron woods. With the wind whipping and rearranging the leaves, perhaps their trail would be covered if the Indians decided to pursue them. They’d also walked in a creek to hide their passing. But would it work? Roxanna heaved a shaky sigh.

  I’m glad Mama’s in the grave and Papa doesn’t know a whit about my present predicament.

  At daylight the women emerged like anxious animals from the cave, damp and dirty and wild-eyed with apprehension. One small pistol was no match for an Indian arrow. But Roxanna clutched it anyway, leading the little group through the wet woods at dawn, in the direction of the fort they’d been trying to reach for nigh on a month. By noon the women in her wake were whining like a rusty wagon wheel, but she didn’t blame them a bit. They had lost all their possessions, every shilling, and hadn’t seen so much as a puff of smoke from a nearby cabin at which they could beg some bread.

  Were they even going the right direction?

  The dense woods seemed to shutter the sun so that it was hard to determine which way was which. When the fort finally came into view, it didn’t match the picture Roxanna had concocted in her mind as she’d come down the watery Ohio River road. The place was dreary. Lethal looking. Stalwart oak pickets impaled the sky, and the front gates of the great garrison were shut. Drawing her cape around her, she stifled a sigh. It needed fruit trees all around . . . and a hint of flowers . . . and children and dogs running about, even in the chill of winter.

  But not one birdcall relieved the gloom.

  As they came closer, she could see the Virginia colors flying on the tall staff just beyond high, inhospitable walls. And then something else came into view—something that matched her memories of home and made a smile warm her tense face. A stone house. She blinked, expecting the lovely sight to vanish. But it only became clearer and more beguiling, and she drank in every delightful detail.

  Solid stone the color of cream. Winsome green shutters with real glass windows hiding behind. Twin chimneys at each end. And a handsome front door that looked like it might be open in welcome come warmer weather. Situated on a slight rise in back of the fort, the house was near enough to the postern gate to flee to in times of trouble, though she doubted even the king’s men could penetrate such stone. Who had built such a place in the midst of such stark wilderness?

  Papa never mentioned a stone house.

  Roxanna was suddenly conscious of the company she kept—or rather was leading. It wasn’t that she was afraid to be seen with these women in their too-tight gowns and made-up faces, or that she felt above them in some way. Glancing at them over her shoulder, she pulled her cloak tighter as the whistling wind of late November blew so bitterly it seemed to slice through her very soul.

  Her skittishness was simply this—she feared the reaction of her father. Stalwart soldier that he was, what would he think to see her arrive in such flamboyant company? He hadn’t an inkling she was coming in the first place. But to see her roll in unexp
ectedly with doxies such as these, and a pitiful child to boot . . .

  “Is that Fort Endeavor, Miz Roxanna?” The weary voice was almost childlike in expectancy. Dovie, only fifteen, had attached herself to Roxanna with the persistence of a horsefly in midsummer’s heat from the moment they’d met on the boat.

  “Yes, that’s the fort, or should be,” she replied as the girl clutched her arm a bit fearfully. “Best keep moving lest the Indians follow.” Roxanna looked to her other side and grabbed hold of Abby’s hand. The child glanced up, ginger curls framing a pale face buttonholed by bluish-gray eyes, her dimpled cheeks visible even without a smile. “We’ll soon be warm and dry again—promise.”

  At the rear, Olympia laughed, and the sound tinkled like a tarnished chime in the frozen air. “I aim to be more than that, truly. Or I reckon I’ll turn right around and find me another fort full of soldierin’ men—or an Indian chief.”

  Ignoring the babble of feminine voices, Roxanna looked over her shoulder warily as they emerged from the woods. How in heaven’s name had it come to this? She realized she was running from discomfort to danger. Virginia no longer felt like home, and she was desperate to leave its hurtful memories behind. But this was far more than she’d bargained for.

  Oh, Lord, was it Your will for me to leave Virginia . . . or my own?

  Every passenger on the flatboat they’d just forsaken seemed to be running from something. Even Olympia had confessed she’d left her life at the public house because she was tired of the lice and the stench of the river and the men who manhandled her. Her sister who had worked alongside her had died, leaving a child behind. To her credit, Olympia wanted a better life for little Abby. The girl hadn’t spoken a word since her mother’s death a few months before, and Roxanna wondered if she ever would.

  “I’ve heard that in Kentucke, women are so scarce even a fallen one like myself can take my pick of any man I please,” Olympia had announced aboard the vessel one evening. “And he’ll treat me decent too.” She smiled with such satisfaction that Roxanna almost envied her.