butler allowed his eyes to widen—whether at Ryan’s Southern drawl or at the mention of Miss Isadora, he couldn’t tell.
“You are here to see Miss Isadora?”
Ryan smiled patiently. “That’s correct. Is she at home?”
“I…” The diminutive man cleared his throat. “I shall inquire. If you like, you may wait in the parlor.” He gestured.
“Your man can go around to the servants’ entrance in the rear.”
Ryan expected the error. “This is Mr. Journey Calhoun, and he isn’t a servant, but my business partner.”
The calm, self-possessed man seemed to be unraveling by inches. He cracked the knuckles of his left hand. “I…I see. Would you please excuse me?”
“By all means.” You officious little snot, he added silently as the butler scurried away.
“You should have sent me around the back,” Journey said. “The food and conversation’s better, anyway.”
“You’re no servant, damn it.” Ryan strolled boldly into the ornate parlor. A chandelier glistening with cut crystal droplets lorded over an arrangement of expensive furniture and objets d’art. A Revere tea service and an array of sparkling cut glass decanters graced a sideboard.
“Didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Journey said. “You recharted your entire life so I wouldn’t be a servant.” He leaned his elbow on the blue-and-gilt fireplace mantel, a slender Meissen vase in the center.
“That’s true,” Ryan said at length. “That’s for damned sure. And don’t think for a minute I regret it.”
A peculiar feeling washed over Ryan. He loved this man, loved him with a ferocity he’d never felt for his own brother. He and Journey had come up together, from sassy rough-and-tumble seven year olds to the men they were now.
The fact that one had been master and the other a slave hadn’t interfered in the friendship—at least, not at first.
Ryan checked his appearance in a gilt-framed mirror. Considering the night he’d had, he looked remarkably well put together, his red hair recently cut by Timothy Datty, the cabin boy. His collar and sky-blue frock coat were crisp and clean, thanks to Luigi Conti, the sail maker who was particular about such things.
He had been seven years old and formally dressed the first day Journey had been brought to him, he recalled. Father had made him wait in the hot summer parlor of Albion, and precisely at noon, Purdy had brought in a little boy with a skinny neck and huge eyes.
“This be my nephew Journey,” Purdy had said, her gaze cutting down and to the side in the manner of most slaves. “He’s a real good boy, ain’t you, Journey? A real good boy.”
And Journey had surprised Ryan. Instead of the meek, deferential countenance bred and beaten into the house servants and field hands, he looked Ryan directly in the eye and spoke in a high, clear voice: “I’m the best boy there is.”
That had been the beginning. The lazy, hot growing-up years had been a time of turbulence balanced with moments of exquisitely sweet tranquillity. They played and fought together, went fishing and boating on Mockjack Bay together. Ryan slept in a mahogany four-poster bed, Journey on a straw pallet on the floor; but more often than not, when Purdy brought breakfast in the morning, she’d find them both splayed out in the big bed. When Ryan went to church, Journey waited in the carriage outside. When Journey wanted to learn to read and cipher, Ryan taught him in secret, by the light of a tallow stub cribbed from the kitchen.
When Journey’s father was sold to pay off the debts of Ryan’s father, Ryan wept and raged with him.
By the time the boys turned sixteen, Journey was married and a father himself. Ryan had seduced a number of local girls, and debutantes from all the best families had begun to notice him.
Life would have gone on in this vein except for two extraordinary things. First, Ryan elected to attend Harvard, Yankee radicals and all. And second, he insisted on bringing Journey with him.
Journey had fought him every inch of the way. He adored his wife and children, who lived at a neighboring plantation. But Ryan was insistent, even lordly about it. No proper gentleman matriculated at a university without his manservant. It was Journey’s duty to go. He had no choice.
Ryan had a plan. He couldn’t even tell Journey, because the slave’s wrath and grief had to be convincing.
Ryan smiled into the mirror, remembering the day he crossed the Mason Dixon line and gave Journey his freedom. Journey had held the manumission papers to his chest, unable to speak as the tears rolled down his face.
Now their shipping enterprise had brought them one step closer to their ultimate goal—to buy Journey’s wife and babies, bring them north and set them free.
“Got to be something wrong with her,” Journey said, startling Ryan out of his remembrances.
“Wrong with who?”
“The plaguey woman.” Journey’s gaze tracked along one wall that was entirely covered by shelf after shelf of books. “Why would a body want to leave a house like this?”
“There must be something about this life she can’t abide,” Ryan whispered, thinking of his own reasons for leaving Albion. “Maybe we should ask—”
“Miss Peabody will receive you in the garden,” the butler said from the doorway. “This way, please.”
Ryan and Journey followed him along a tall, narrow corridor hung with portraits. The family tree, Ryan assumed, noting that each subject seemed to be extraordinarily handsome. Either the painters were expert flatterers or this clan had been bred for show.
They passed through a glassed-in verandah and then emerged onto a clipped and sculpted yard. Paradise in miniature, Ryan thought, noting the vine pergolas and pruned yew trees, At the far end stood a gazebo with a domed roof and open sides. In the middle sat a woman in black, her head bent as she read a thick book in her lap.
“Miss Peabody?” Ryan said.
She looked up, blinking owlishly as if she had come from a dark place into the light. A pair of spectacles sat low on her nose, and she seemed to see better by peering over the top of the lenses.
“Yes.” Her voice squeaked, and she cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said again. “Captain Calhoun. I am indeed pleased that you’ve come.”
He stood before her, watching her hands, expecting her to extend one for his kiss. Instead, she clutched the book very hard, displaying fingernails that had been bitten ragged. She had, of all things, the indirect, cowed look of a slave. As if she feared she might be beaten at any moment.
Discomfited by the thought, he opted for a formal bow from the waist. “This is Mr. Journey Calhoun, my associate and steward of the Swan.”
She clutched the book tighter. “Oh! I was expecting a note, not two grown men! I’m—um—pleased to meet you.”
Ryan had never met a more socially gauche woman in his life. He dared not look at Journey, for if their gazes met, they would surely dishonor her with a fit of sniggering.
