“Did you know that my mother ran a company?”
Alex had to stop himself from saying that he knew all about it, but he didn’t want to interrupt her. “What kind of company?”
“It was in Boston, before she was married, and she hired a lot of women to sell fruit. She was very successful, and when she sold the business, she made a great deal of money, which she gave to her employees. My mother did some truly wonderful things. But what have I done?”
“Driven three men insane with your indecision?” he offered.
She knew he’d meant it as a joke, but she didn’t take it as such. “That’s just it! The truth is that I’m having trouble remembering what those men look like.”
“Ugly, handsome, and in between.”
She nodded. “More or less.”
“So what are you saying, lass? Would you like to stay in Florida and wait for me to return? I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” He wanted to give Nate plenty of time to investigate.
“Wait,” Cay said. “I’m to wait.” To her, the word sounded awful, but at the same time she thought maybe she could sketch what she saw. Her teacher, Mr. Johns, had often said it was a shame she couldn’t go out west and paint the magnificent landscapes he’d heard were there. Maybe while she waited for Alex to return, she could go to the big plantations they’d passed and paint portraits of the inhabitants.
“Maybe it won’t be so long,” Alex said, and he couldn’t keep the hope out of his voice. Maybe by the time he returned, Nate would have found out the truth. In the last few days he’d been asking himself why someone had wanted Lilith dead. Why her but not him? And, also, a couple of times, he’d asked himself if it was possible that what had been suggested at the trial could be true, that Lilith had drugged the wine and given it to Alex. But, always, he came back to the question of why.
“You’re thinking about your wife, aren’t you? You have that faraway, sad look in your eyes again.”
“You’ve come to know me well.” He put his hand on the log beside him, and Cay sat down. “I won’t stay long on the trip. What if I stay a month or so, then tell Grady that I have to leave? I’ll help him find someone else to take care of the horses, and I’ll return and escort you back to Virginia.”
Cay grimaced. “Doing that would defeat the whole purpose of your escape. No, we need to part from each other. Your plan of leaving me behind is good, it’s just that I don’t like it.”
He was pleased at her logic—and at her self-sacrifice. “I hope to prove my innocence.”
“If you don’t, you’ll be hiding all your life.”
“I know, lass,” he said softly, “but I can assure you that I’ll do whatever I can to clear your name.”
“I’m sure my father and brothers will prevent anything from happening to me. It’s you I’m concerned about. You’re a nice man and—”
“Am I now?” he said as he mounted his horse.
“Sometimes you are,” she said tightly as she put her foot in the stirrup. She was giving him a compliment, but he was, as always, laughing at her.
“Will you invite me to dinner at your big house? You and I will recall the days we slept together on our wild ride south, and it’ll make your husband insane with jealousy.”
His teasing was infectious. “Then he and I will argue, but my husband and I will reconcile lovingly and that will make you jealous.” She reined her horse away, her nose in the air.
“Ha!” Alex said as he pulled up beside her. “By that time I’ll have two women on my arms—no! three of them—and I’ll own the biggest horse farm in all of Virginia.”
“You’ll lose your shirt in gambling, and what woman is going to want a smelly old man like you?” She was glad to see him smiling, and she was especially pleased to hear him talk about women other than the wife he’d lost.
“The scent of jasmine will become all the rage in men’s clothes,” he said, sounding like a man who cared about fashion. “Even the traders will be wearing it with their buckskins.”
“They’ll attract butterflies, and that’ll start a new trend for women. Our bonnets will be covered in butterfly wings.”
“And your husband will hate them because they make him sneeze.”
“I’m going to marry someone who is so manly that he never even sneezes,” she said as she urged her horse forward.
Her good humor lasted another hour, but when she began to think about what was going to happen when they got there, Cay felt more gloomy with every step they took. She was to stay in a boardinghouse alone for a few weeks after Alex left, then she was to proceed, as he’d told her repeatedly, cautiously toward home. She couldn’t think of anything more boring, lonely—or frightening. She couldn’t help but think of a hundred things that could go wrong. Even though she’d told Alex that she was certain her family would clear her name, she still worried about the timing. What if the Charleston police realized that their prisoner had probably gone south? Many people knew of Uncle T.C.’s explorations, so surely they knew of his next trip. She knew that T.C. and Mr. Grady had been planning
the journey since the spring, so it wouldn’t take much detective work to figure out that the escaped fugitive—and his accomplice—had probably gone to Florida to meet the exploration team.
If this were true, what would Cay do if the authorities showed up in Florida after Alex left? Cay would be there alone. All by herself.