Raising her gaze, she looked out fine English glass onto a world of vivid greens broken by colorful splashes of blossoms. Elisabeth’s favorites, butter-yellow roses and pale pink peonies, danced in the wind as it sighed around the townhouse’s corners. Nearly summer at last. But not only almost June. ’Twas nearly her wedding day.
“Oh là là! What have we here?” Around the bedchamber’s corner came a high, musical voice. “Surely a bride does not sew her own laces!”
“Nay, Isabeau. I’ve not patience enough for that.”
“Not for an entire wedding gown, merci.” The maid rounded the four-poster bed as fast as her girth would allow, holding a pair of clocked stockings. “You have been busy all the forenoon and likely forgot ’tis nearly teatime with the countess. Lady Charlotte surely wants to discuss your betrothal ball. ’Tis rumored Lord and Lady Amberly will be there.”
Elisabeth nearly smiled at her maid’s flaunting of titles. A humble Huguenot, Isabeau was still as bedazzled by the gentry as the day she’d first landed on Virginia’s shores. Elisabeth set aside her lace pillow and watched her maid pull two tea gowns from a large armoire.
“Are you in a blue mood or a yellow one?”
“Yellow,” she said. Yellow was Lady Charlotte’s favorite color, and Elisabeth sought to cheer her all she could. In turn, the governor’s palace served up a lavish tea table that surely rivaled the British king’s.
Glancing at the tiny watch pinned to her bodice, Elisabeth left her chair so that Isabeau could undress and redress her.
“’Tis such a lovely day, likely the countess wants a turn in the garden. Do you think her girls will be about?”
“I should hope so. Fresh air and exercise are good for them, though their father oft keeps them inside of late.”
Isabeau darted her a fretful look. “On account of the trouble, you mean.”
Elisabeth tried not to think of that. “The sun might spoil their complexion, Lady Charlotte says. And she’s right, you know. Look at me!” Though faint, the freckles across the bridge of her nose and the top of her cheekbones gave her skin a slightly tarnished look that even ample powder couldn’t cover. Her fault for slipping outside with her handwork in the private corner of the garden she was so fond of, forever hatless.
“You are tres belle, even speckled,” Isabeau said, lacing her stays a bit tighter. “And you’ve won the most dashing suitor in all Virginia Colony, no?”
“One of them.” Elisabeth swallowed hard to keep from saying more on that score too. Her fiancé, Miles Cullen Roth, was many things, but he was not cut of the same cloth as fellow Virginians William Drew and George Rogers Clark and Edmund Randolph.
Isabeau’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Though I do wonder about love.”
Elisabeth shot a glance at the cracked bedchamber door. Papa always said she gave the servants too much room to talk, but the truth was she preferred plain speaking to the prissy airs of the drawing room. “’Tis a business matter, marriage.”
“So says your father.” Isabeau frowned her displeasure. “I am a romantic. One must marry for love, no?”
“Is that the way of it in France?”
“Oui, oui!” her maid answered.
Though she was an indentured servant, Isabeau did not have a father who orchestrated her every move. Given that, Elisabeth could only guess the gist of Isabeau’s thoughts. I am free. Free to come and go outside of work. Free to marry whom I please.
And she? Who was Elisabeth Anne Lawson? The reflection in the looking glass told her little. When the history books were printed and gathered dust, what would be said of her?
That she had the fortune—or misfortune—to be the only child of the governor of Virginia Colony, the earl of Stirling? Daughter of a firebrand mother who used ink and quill like a weapon? Possessor of a pedigree and dowry the envy of any colonial belle? Friend and confidante of Lady Dunmore? Wife of Miles Cullen Roth? Mistress of Roth Hall?
End of story.
The scarlet seal on the letter was as unmistakable as the writing hand. Noble Rynallt took it from his housekeeper and retreated to the quiet of Ty Mawr’s paneled study. Sitting down in a leather chair, he propped his dusty boots up on the wide windowsill overlooking the James River before breaking the letter’s seal.
Time is of the essence. We must take account of our true allies as well as our enemies. You must finagle a way to attend Lord Dunmore’s ball 2 June, 1775, at the Palace. ’Tis on behalf of your cousin, after all. Gather any intelligence you can that will aid our cause.
Patrick Henry
’Twas the last of May. Noble had little time to finagle. His cousin was soon to wed Williamsburg’s belle, Lady Elisabeth Lawson. He’d given it little thought, had no desire to attend any function at the Governor’s Palace, especially one in honor of his nemesis’s daughter. Lord Stirling was onto him, onto all the Independence Men, and none of them had received an invitation. But ’twas as Henry said, Noble’s cousin was the groom. Surely an invitation was forthcoming or had been overlooked.
Noble frowned, thinking of the stir he’d raise appearing. Lord Stirling was likely to have an apoplectic fit. But if that happened, at least one of the major players barring Virginia Colony’s fight for independence would be removed. And his own attendance at the ball would announce he’d finally come out of second mourning.
The unwrinkled copy of the Virginia Gazette, smelling of fresh ink and Dutch bond paper, seemed to shout the matrimonial news.
Miles Cullen Roth’s future bride, Lady Elisabeth Lawson, an agreeable young Lady of Fortune, will preside at the Governor’s ball the 2nd of June, 1775 . . .
The flowery column included details of the much-anticipated event right down to her dowry, naming minutiae even Elisabeth was unaware of. As she turned the paper facedown atop the dressing table, her smile faded. A ticklish business, indeed.
Isabeau, quick to catch her mistress’s every mood, murmured, “The beggars! I’d rather it be said you have a sunny disposition and Christian character. Or that you are a smidgen over five feet tall, flaxen haired, and have all your teeth save one. And that one, Dieu merci, is a jaw tooth!”
“I am Williamsburg’s bride,” Elisabeth said as her maid pinned her gown together with practiced hands. “The locals feel they can print what they want about me. After all, I was born and bred in this very spot and have been catered to ever since.”
“You don’t begrudge them their bragging?” Isabeau studied her. “Having the particulars of one’s dowry devoured by the masses seems shabby somehow.”
“It does seem silly. Everyone knows what everyone else is worth in Williamsburg. There’s no need to spell it out.”
“Tell that to your dear papa,” Isabeau answered with furrowed brow. “He had a footman pass out multiple copies of the Gazette this morning like bonbons on Market Square.”
Unsurprised, Elisabeth fell silent. Turning, silk skirts swishing, she extended an arm for Isabeau to arrange the beribboned sleeve. Below came the muted sound of horse hooves atop cobblestones.
“Your intended? On time? And in such stormy weather?” Isabeau looked up at her mistress with surprised jade eyes.