Vixens. Bertrice Small

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      Chapter 1

      Frances Devers had spent the several weeks crossing the ocean in a fog of sorrow and pain. A short year ago she had been courted by the handsomest man in all the Colonies. And then at Christmas Parker Randolph had asked for her hand, and she had accepted. He was a Virginia Randolph, although not from the more important branch of the Randolphs who were involved in the politics of the Colony. His family were distant cousins, but still he was a Virginia Randolph, her sister Maeve said enviously, admiring the diamond-and-pearl ring her youngest sibling now wore. Maeve was married to the eldest son of a local tobacco farmer.

      The preparations had begun for a June wedding. There had been parties and balls and even picnics once the spring came. There was a trousseau to be made. A modiste and a tailor had come all the way from Williamsburg with their staffs to do the work, helped, of course, by the plantation servants. There were virtually no slaves on her family’s tobacco plantation. Neither Kieran nor Fortune Devers believed in slavery. While they bought blacks at the slave auctions, the Africans remained slaves only long enough to be civilized. Then they were freed legally, paid a wage, and given shelter and food. Whether they remained was their decision, but most did for the Devers were known to be good employers.

      The wedding of Frances Devers and Parker Randolph had been one of the most anticipated affairs of the year in the Colonies. The guests had come from as far as Massachusetts Bay and Barbados. The bride was the youngest child of a very wealthy and distinguished family. The groom was a Virginia Randolph. No expense had been spared to make this a gala event. The bride was beautiful. The groom set hearts a-flutter among the female guests. And then, the girl in the duke of Lundy’s coach shuddered, putting from her mind the terrible images that refused to cease torturing her.

      In the scandal and the chaos that had followed that terrible day, she had been comforted by her family, interrogated by the local king’s justice, and prepared to be sent away from Maryland after her husband’s funeral. She would go to England. To her grandmother, a woman she had never met. To a part of her family she didn’t know. Six weeks after her wedding, she was put upon a ship. The ship belonged to her family’s trading company, she was informed. She hadn’t been aware her family owned ships. She was distantly related to the ship’s captain, she was told. His wife would be her chaperon. Her longtime, and loved personal servant, a young black woman named Junie-Bee, would not accompany her. The break with Maryland was to be complete.

      The day Frances boarded the Cardiff Rose II, her entire family accompanied her to the vessel. Her eldest sister, Aine, a nun with the Sisters of Saint Mary, had come for the wedding. She remained on in the tragic aftermath to comfort their mother. There as well were her eldest brother Shane and his wife, her brothers Cullen and Rory and their wives, her sister Maeve and her husband, and all her nieces and nephews. The youngest of her parents’ sons Jamie and Charles, unmarried and adventurous, envied her. But they all cried, even her roughnecked brothers who had been closest in age to her. No one knew if Frances Devers would ever come home again.

      Fortune Devers was pale. She wept copiously at having to part with her youngest child. She silently cursed the Virginia Randolphs for not knowing their son. Kieran Devers was drawn and, for the first time in his life, looked old. His heart had not been strong these past few years. This dreadful misfortune and the resulting consequence had taken a toll on his now-frail health.

      “I am so sorry, Papa!” Frances sobbed on her father’s shoulder a final time.

      “Nay, lassie,” he reassured her, stroking her dark hair. “You were right.” He should have listened to his voice within, for he had sensed something off about young Parker Randolph. But he loved his child too much, and so he had pushed his doubts away, and let her follow her heart. Now they were all paying for his mistake. And they would lose her for it.

      “These people you are sending me to . . .” she began.

      “Your grandmother knows the truth of the matter, lassie,” he said. “She will love you, and you will love her. Jasmine Leslie is a good and sensible woman. Listen to her, my wee Fancy,” he continued, using the nickname she had had since childhood, “she will guide you well. Your mother’s family are wonderful people.” And he kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “You have her eyes, you know. Hers are that marvelous turquoise, too.”

      “They are?” Frances sniffed.

      “Aye, they are,” he said, smiling for the first time in weeks. “She was a princess from a foreign land. She traveled to England for over six months aboard a great vessel, the first one to be called Cardiff Rose. You will travel only a few weeks, my dearest daughter. And while I am an Irishman born, England is a lovely land, too. You will be happy there.”

      “Not without you and Mama!” Frances cried. “Not without my family, Papa!”

      “You have a very large family, my child,” Fortune told her daughter. “Most of them you have never met. But I have spoken to you over the years of them all. You will live with your grandmother on my brother Charlie’s estate. You will have two of your cousins for companions. They are young girls like yourself. Your uncle is related to the king himself! You will probably go to court, Fancy! And one day, knowing my mother, you will again find a man to love, and this time he will really love you.”

      “Never!” Fancy spat.

      “Surely you do not still hold an affection for Parker Randolph?” her mother said nervously.

      “No, I do not,” the girl said stonily.

      Fortune heaved an audible sigh of relief, and remembering it Fancy Devers almost laughed aloud. No. She held no passion for her departed husband. But she would never again allow any man to gain the slightest hold on her heart. Men could not be trusted, except, of course, for her father, and brothers.

      Finally the ship was ready to sail. With much kissing and crying, Frances Devers bid her family and her childhood a final farewell. She then proceeded to weep her way across the Atlantic until England came into her view. The captain’s wife, a motherly woman who had raised two daughters of her own, was wise enough to offer Frances her warm companionship but no advice unless solicited. She coaxed the grieving girl to eat and spoke warmly of Lady Jasmine.

      When their vessel had finally anchored in the London Pool, there had been a smaller boat awaiting her, a barge. They lowered her in the boatswain’s chair from the deck of the Cardiff Rose II to the deck of her waiting transport. The little cabin was elegant with its green velvet bench and fresh flowers in crystal holders on either side of the enclosure. There were pink roses, daisies, and delicate ferns. Her luggage finally stowed aboard the barge, and a second river transport, Fancy Devers began her journey upriver to Chiswick-on-Strand where she would stay the night at a place called Greenwood House.

      It was midafternoon of an early September day, and the great bustling city through which the river Thames glided was a revelation to a girl who had never before in her entire life seen a real city. She didn’t know which way to turn next, or if she should be afraid. The door to her enclosure was open to allow the river breeze to cool her. One of the rowers kept shouting out the places of interest as they passed.

      “There be Whitehall, miss. King’s not there right now. The gentry likes the country in the summertime. There be Westminster Palace. There be the Houses of Parliament for all the good the gentlemen politicians do us common folk. There be the Tower where traitors are kept and then gets their heads chopped off, miss.” This last was said with great relish.

      Finally the barge nosed its way into a stone landing quay and docked. Liveried servants hurried down the green lawn to the water’s edge and СКАЧАТЬ