Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2)

by Meredith, Anne

  Juliana’s skin was a shade or two darker than Marley’s, confirming in a moment that all three sisters at least had a darker ancestor. She was equally as exotic as Marley and as classically beautiful as their eldest sister.

  “And—our mother? Do you see her in any of us?”

  Marley instantly regretted the words. Her sister remembered nothing of their mother; but for Hastings, she could see that he remembered too well.

  “My own darling Cassie, so lovely like her mother, but so good and true, like my William. I saw my Cassandra in Rachel.”

  It was true—Rachel had looked like their mother.

  “But how—how can any of this be?”

  Hastings, too, laughed at Marley’s skepticism. “After all you’ve seen, child, you doubt?”

  A smile blossomed over her face at a striking moment in her life: the convergence of awareness of her place in time, in this time, this moment—and utter joy at the complete goodness of God’s generosity. Perhaps life was dreadful and difficult, but it did have its moments—and this was one.

  “Then—Juliana, do you know everything? All of our history?”

  “Do you?”

  The young woman’s response was innocent, even hopeful, not confrontational. And yet, it gave Marley pause.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Hastings grasped their joined hands. “There is much we may never know, and much I believe we should leave unspoken.”

  “Why? Truth can never harm.”

  “Indeed it can.” Hastings’ expression was grim. “We already are far into the supernatural. We are certain of nothing. I would hope that everyone would be content with what they have been given. My old heart has been broken too many times to count over the past thirty years.”

  Then Marley remembered. “You knew. You knew about Juli, you knew about Rachel, and you told me nothing. For all these months, I might have known my own dear sister. What else haven’t you told me?”

  He pursed his lips. “If I have been less than forthcoming, I have had good reason.”

  “But—”

  The back door opened, and she heard the footsteps of someone entering the kitchen. “Juliana, ’tis us.”

  Marley remembered the pistol the young woman had hidden in her skirts, realizing she had been home completely alone in these woods. How did the poor girl live?

  “We have company.” Juliana rose and walked toward the new arrivals.

  “Oh, how wonderful!” This from an elderly woman who entered, removing her cloak. She crossed the room and placed it on a peg near from the fireplace, patting stray hairs into place. “Godfrey! How good to see you.”

  She had a youthful sparkle in her blue eyes and a similar energy in her step, and Marley found it difficult to tell her age as she approached them.

  A man entered with similar exuberance; his hair was a wild froth of white about his head. He carried large packages wrapped in brown paper, and he grinned broadly as he set them on a table and came to place his hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  “Godfrey Hastings, you genteel old thing.”

  “You speak as if it’s a felonious trait,” Hastings said, raising an eyebrow.

  The man threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, I’ve missed you, my good man. We always seem to be away when you come and go.”

  “Well, I did bring a ship full of other guests with me, but they shall wait outside while we finish our chat. Merrilea, this is Malcolm Henderson, a—er, a good friend of mine. And this is Mary Van Kirk.”

  Something about these two was disturbingly familiar—but only faintly so.

  “Malcolm, Mary, this is my great granddaughter, as well as Juliana’s sister—Merrilea Miller.”

  “Merrilea Trelawney,” she said with a smile.

  “Dear, forgive me. Merrilea has recently wed the young brother of Lord Windmere, Bronson.”

  Both of the convivial couple went abruptly silent. Their mouths fell open in inelegant unison.

  “I see,” Mary said. She slowly smiled at her companion. “Have we been keeping up with our messages?”

  Silently, he looked down at her. “Why is that always my job?”

  “I didn’t decide that. It just is.”

  His mouth worked awkwardly, until at last he sighed. “Then no. I have not.”

  Mary stepped forward and extended her hand. “Congratulations on your marriage, Merrilea. We were indeed expecting you, but not today. Consequently our supper fare is meager indeed.”

  “We knew your sister, Rachel,” Malcolm said.

  Now it was her turn to be stunned.

  “Aunt Mary and Uncle Malcolm are from another land, far away,” Juliana put in. “From the way they describe it, it sounds quite like a fairy tale.”

  She looked to Hastings, attempting to cloak her confusion.

  “Mary and Malcolm are brother and sister,” he explained. “They travel about quite similarly to the way you have, and they aid others in their travel.”

  “You mean like a … travel agent?” In time?

  “You might say that. We are empowered to enable crossings through different lands that otherwise would, er, be impractical. I believe we’re more properly defined as border control.” This from Malcolm, who glanced at Mary as if for her thoughts on the matter.

  Then, as she stared, she finally placed them. These two were the elderly couple she’d seen that day so long ago in Williamsburg, when she’d first seen Camisha with Rachel. Rachel had mentioned them when they spoke through the portal at Rosalie.

  The couple were indeed travel agents—of a sort.

  She sighed. “I need Bronson with me. Juliana must know the plain truth.”

  “And she will, dear. In time.”

  “She will know now. Today.”

  She turned for the door, but at that moment Bronson opened it. He walked the short distance to Marley and grasped her hand. “All well?”

  She nodded, then introduced the others, beginning with the elderly couple and ending with Juliana. “And this is my baby sister.”

  He took her hand and bent deeply over it, then straightened, his gaze meeting Marley’s in confusion.

  She raised her hands and shook her head.

  “Perhaps I know the answers.”

  The voice at the open door drew their attention, and they turned to find Hannah Hastings standing beside her fiancé, her face drawn with an emotion Marley could not define. Perhaps shame.

  “You.” The voice was thick with contempt. However, it came not from Hastings—but from the kindly old Mary Van Kirk. How could she know Nan?

  “Yes, me. May I be condemned by you all, but I will not live another hour with the lies I’ve known for twenty-five years now.” Without waiting for permission, she turned to the Adamses, waiting patiently outside. “Come in and get comfortable. This will take a while, and none of you are likely to speak with me afterward. So I suggest we enjoy our last time together. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll make tea so we might behave as civilized folk.”

  With that, she disappeared into the kitchen as if it were still her own. Bronson walked to the fireplace and stoked the afternoon fire. He and Rashall fetched chairs from the kitchen so that everyone might sit, but he, instead, walked to the window and stared out. Marley joined him there, watching the steel-gray clouds moving in behind the trees.

  He drew her against his chest lightly. “Red sky at morning,” he reminded her in a quiet murmur, kissing her temple.

  She nodded with dismal resignation.

  Nan returned with a pewter tea service on a tray and set it in the midst of the table. “Marley, if you would serve, it would be a great help to me.”

  Marley nodded and poured the tea. And as Nan began to speak, the storm broke over the tidewater, pelting Stonefield with heavy rain and hail. As Nan continued, so did the storm, far into the night.

  “There is not a single person in this room whom I have not wronged, one way or another. My tale will explain. Although I do not deserve your forgiveness, I
ask it anyway.

  “Thomas, Merrilea, Juliana—Rachel, though she is not here to hear my confession, nor to dispense forgiveness—Camisha, Ashanti, and, by extension of my betraying those you love, Bronson and Rashall.

  “Godfrey, you gave me the love of a father and I betrayed you, as you know. I hope, not for my sake, but for your own, that you can someday—the sooner, the better—release your anger toward me. Forgive me not for my sake, but for your own.

  “My story is long, and none of you have ever heard it. Feel as you wish toward me. Hate me, despise me, refuse me your forgiveness. I ask only that you not pity me, and it shames me to know that because you are all good-hearted, that is likely all that you will feel. And of that, even, I am undeserving. Bronson, sit down and listen to the tale. It will break your wife’s heart.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  I know nothing of my parents. I was born in London, in 1729, and abandoned at an orphanage. From the age of four, I worked at a mill six days a week. The older I got, the longer my days grew. I worked 60-70 hours each week until I was 9, when a man, supposedly my uncle, came to claim me.

  Almost immediately, he sold me into indentured servitude to pay for my passage to the colony of Virginia. In Virginia, the ship’s master sold my papers to a family from the old country. I grew excited, certain that life could only be better. At least I had a small pallet in the kitchen, near the hearth, and my prospects seemed more promising. Indeed, the grandfather of this family was kindly to me, petting me with more love and gentleness than I had known until then.

  One day when I went into his room to clean, he brought me onto his lap and read to me, and even now I remember how much this delighted me—that he could open this small item—this book—and draw forth from it a tale of brave knights, pretty ladies, and fearsome pirates. I was quite agog with wonder at what next awaited.

  Then as he held me he began to touch me in a way that was shameful. Even now, I as a grown woman of many years cannot tell what he did.

  Affrighted, I made as if to stand, and he hit me across the face with a stiff hard hand, making my ears ring and my eyes sting with tears. At this he repented and patted my shoulder as if nothing had happened and I went on to finish my chores, musing at these strange occurrences.

  The next time I had necessity to enter his room, similar events occurred. Always he began with the kind embrace of a good man; always he roamed into that which I did not understand and which gave me the darkest, most unspeakable kind of sadness; always when I struggled, he struck me.

  Always, this happened when the rest of the family was out. After this, I attempted to avoid his company except when others were present. He found me, though, regardless, and this went on for a long and dreadsome time.

  In time, I came not to protest the abuse, for perhaps in his way, I thought, the old grandfather loved me.

  Only now do I know that my dark sadness was shame and that my hunger for any scrap of love made me submit to this mistreatment—even to the point of being beaten, I cared not. I had never known love, and I came to believe this was love.

  He did things to me that no grown woman should have to endure, and I a child not yet ten. Later I would be grateful that he did not do worse.

  The children in the home were cruel to me, beating me, taunting me. As I grew older, the grandfather died, and I was bereft to know I would miss the morsels of counterfeit kindness this despicable man fed me.

  And then the master of the household began to take notice of me—and his wife took notice of that.

  When I was fourteen, at the insistence of his wife, the master sold my papers to another family, the family of a wealthy merchant sea captain. I was to serve as a companion to their elderly aunt, who was of poor health and confined to her quarters. They were quite good to me, and gave me a lovely, small room. I learned many skills from the house staff there—how to sew and mend, how to cook, how to clean. I was treated well, and soon it came time for my labor to be completed, and I began to seek paying positions using the skills I had acquired.

  In Norfolk with my mistress to shop for groceries, I asked after work, and was given the name of a lady nearby who sought a maid. The happiest hour in my ill-begotten life so far came when I knocked on the door, and a young man answered.

  He was a plain young man, but he smiled with the joy of life itself, and my finest moment was that hour he fell in love with me on sight.

  The young man was William Hastings, visiting the son of that lady.

  I spoke with her about the job, and when I left with my mistress, we had not walked far when we ran into William again. Later I learned he had been waiting for me. He asked the lady who held my papers if he could court me—perhaps believing she was my mother. God forgive me, I never corrected him.

  We soon married and I moved into Stonefield. In another year, our daughter Cassandra was born. Later that year, a couple came to work for us, sent by Godfrey to help us, with a young son named Robert.

  They were a godsend and, I soon learned, a curse—he being a sailor but willing to work, she being a former slave. Alone they were accepted, but the two of them caused much anger to some when they were obliged to travel into the town for provisions. Still, we kept them safe here at Stonefield, and little Robert adored Cassandra as if she were his own soulmate, she even just a babe.

  I was content, but I had an uneasy feeling that something in my marriage was lacking—in point of fact, I doubted I loved William as he deserved because William was never less than the most loving, kind man a wife could hope for. I worked hard to be a good wife and mother to make up for whatever unknown lack this might be.

  And before I knew it, it was over. William died of smallpox when Cassie was four, and I had no idea how to take care of our little daughter, let alone the house with servants, on my own. So I wrote Hastings and asked him if he could possibly take us in.

  Of course, I didn’t know firsthand of the tragedies that the Trelawneys had recently suffered—first, Thomas losing his wife, then losing his son and granddaughter. And if all that weren’t terrible enough, that fine mansion at Rosalie had been burned down, and both Godfrey and Thomas were living in the former overseer’s home. It’s quite a lovely, comfortable, and spacious home, of course, but nothing to compare with Rosalie.

  Now, as for the Millers, a curious thing occurred. Although I had loved them and wanted them to stay there at Rosalie with us—and despite Godfrey’s reassurance that they were welcome, they soon moved away. Godfrey did not explain to me where they went, although I learned soon enough. This was the first time I had ever known him to be less than perfectly honest with me. He is a scrupulously good man, and as one who had become accustomed to lying, I recognized the signs of honesty in him.

  However, I soon was captured with other concerns. When I met Thomas, I thought I’d never seen a more forbidding, austere, and frightening man, and I was powerfully drawn to him. I cared, too, for his son Bronson, who was my Cassandra’s own age. The children grew quite close during this time.

  Thomas, to my delight, developed an affection for me, and when I knew him better, I realized there was little to be afraid of in Thomas, and that he would never raise a hand against me. Despite his dangerous aura, he was as kind and gentle as my own William.

  During these same years, Camisha and Ashanti came to visit Ruth and the others, and I found Camisha refreshing and she became much like an older sister to me.

  Thomas had begun sailing for amusement and enjoyed it, and then, because he has a head for commerce, he soon made a business of it. The only commodity he refused to traffic in were human beings, and it was to his credit, because traders made a pretty penny buying those slaves who survived their masters’ death—and then selling them at a profit. Thomas’s heart had been changed by the life—and by the death—of his oldest son.

  When my young Cassie was seven, Thomas invited us along on a visit he had planned to Norfolk, and Ruth Trelawney accompanied us as my chaperone.

  I can
not explain the unwholesome hunger that ate at me, and while we stopped in at a store for supplies Ruth needed to purchase, I wandered out and walked along the quay, admiring the ships in the harbor and trying to imagine the adventure that occurred on these ships.

  From a smaller ship docked at the quay, I noticed a dark brute of a man, black-bearded and handsome, looking as I imagined the pirates looked that the old grandfather had told me about.

  He watched me from the ship, his gaze insolent on me. My initial reaction to him was rightly fear, and yet in that same instinct I was drawn to him. He invited me aboard for a tour.

  Although I had not known what I sought as I had left the store, I found it in the man Lucian Caine. He showed me around his ship, including his cabin, and when he seduced me, he brutalized me. I told him who I was—the daughter-in-law of Godfrey Hastings, and he was delighted. I knew not why at the time.

  I fell in love with him that day.

  I had made my way back to the group before Thomas returned. On his return, he delighted me with gifts—a lovely silver hairbrush, and a silver repousse pillbox. He knew how I suffered from headaches and thought this an elegant way to have my opium tablets handy. I rarely took them, but they were the only relief to be found for my sick headaches. I tried to decline the gifts, but he insisted.

  When we returned to Rosalie, Thomas surprised me by proposing to me. I still remember the moment, with little Bronson sitting on my lap, playing with the pillbox. Such a brilliant little boy—his father had explained to him that day the function of the box, though I doubt he remembers it at all.

  However, he no doubt remembers his father’s heartbreak that day, or in the days that passed. It gave me no pleasure to break Thomas’s kind heart, and when I did, he left Rosalie for Bermuda, where he remained with Bronson for a long while, visiting Rosalie only infrequently, avoiding me when he did so.