Chapter 1 #4
Virginia closed her eyes tightly against the glaring sun, her smile faltering. God, she hated her uncle, the Earl of Eastleigh, a man she’d never met. He hadn’t even discussed the state of the plantation with her! Yet it belonged to her!
Or it would, if it hadn’t been sold off by the time she turned twenty-one.
Now the three years between the present and her majority loomed as an eternity.
“Miz Virginia,” Frank suddenly said, restraining her from entering the imposing facade of the brick-and-limestone bank.
Virginia paused, her stomach churning with fear and dread. She managed a small smile. “I may be long—but I hope not.”
“It’s not that,” he said roughly. He was very tall, perhaps five inches over six feet, and dangerously handsome.
Tillie had fallen in love with him at first sight, almost five years ago, not that anyone would have known it, with the way she’d snubbed him and put on airs.
Apparently it had been mutual—not six months later he’d asked Randall Hughes for permission to marry her, and that permission had been instantly given.
“I’m afraid, Miz Virginia, afraid of what will happen to Tillie and my boys if you don’t get this loan today. ”
Virginia had been acutely aware of her responsibility to save Sweet Briar and her people, but now it crashed over her with stunning force.
Fifty-two slaves were depending on her, many of them children.
Tillie, her best friend, was depending on her, and so was Frank.
“I will get this loan, Frank. You have nothing to worry about.” She must have sounded forceful and confident, because his eyes widened instantly and he doffed his hat to her.
Virginia gave him another reassuring smile, silently begged God for a little help and entered the bank.
Inside, it was blessedly cool, oddly reverent and as quiet as a church. Two customers were at the teller’s queue and one clerk was at a front desk. At a desk in the back sat Charles King. He looked up then and saw her, his eyes widening in surprise.
This was it, she thought, lifting her chin to an impossible height. Her smile felt odd and brittle, fixed, as she marched forward through the lobby and the spacious back area of the bank.
King stood, a fat man neatly and well dressed, his old-fashioned wig powdered and tied back. “Virginia! My dear, for one awful moment, I thought you were your mother, God rest her beloved soul!”
Her father had told her many times that she looked just like her mother, but Virginia hadn’t ever believed it because Mama was so beautiful, although they shared the same nearly black hair and the same oddly violet eyes.
She held out her hand as Charles took it firmly, clearly pleased to see her.
“An illusion of light, I suppose,” she said, impressed with her own grace and bearing.
But she had to convince Charles that she was a fine and capable lady now.
“Yes, I suppose. I thought you were at school in Richmond. Do come in—have you come to see me?” he asked, leading her back to his desk and the high chairs facing it.
“Yes, frankly, I have,” Virginia said, gripping her mother’s elegant black velvet reticule tightly.
Charles smiled, offering her a chair and some tea.
Virginia declined. “So how have you found the big city, Virginia?” he asked, taking his seat behind his desk.
His gaze held hers, with some concern. Virginia knew he was finally noticing how peaked she was, due to the terrible strain of her grief and now her worry over the state of her father’s finances.
Virginia shrugged. “I suppose it is fine enough. But you know I adore Sweet Briar—there is no place I would rather be.”
For one moment Charles stared and then he was grim. “I know you are a clever young lady, so may I assume you realize your uncle is selling the plantation?”
She wanted to lean forward and shout that the earl had no right. She didn’t move—she didn’t even dare to breathe—not until her temper had passed. But even then she said, “He has no right.”
“I am afraid he has every right. After all, he is your guardian.”
Virginia sat impossibly stiff and straight. “Mr. King, I have come here to secure a loan, so that I may pay off my father’s debts and save Sweet Briar from sale and even possible dissolution.”
He blinked.
She smiled bleakly at him. “I have helped Father manage the plantation since I was a child. No one knows how to plant and harvest, ship and sell tobacco better than I. I assure you, sir, that I would repay your loan in full, with any necessary interest, as soon as was possible. I—”
“Virginia,” Charles King began, too kindly.
Panic began. She leapt to her feet. “I may be a woman and I may be eighteen but I do know how to run Sweet Briar! No one except my father knows how better than I do! I swear to you, sir, I would repay every penny! How much do I need to pay off Father’s debts?” she cried desperately.
Charles regarded her with pity. “My dear child, his debts amount to a staggering twenty-two thousand dollars.”
The shock was so great that her heart stopped and her knees gave way and somehow, she was sitting down. “No.”
“I have spoken with your uncle’s agent at great length.
His name is Roger Blount and I do believe he is on his way back to Britain in the next few days after seeing to your affairs here.
Sweet Briar is not a lucrative plantation, Virginia,” he continued gently.
“Your father had loss after loss, year after year. Even if I were foolish enough to lend a young and untried girl such a sum of money, there is simply no way you could ever repay me—not from the plantation. I am sorry. Selling Sweet Briar is the only intelligent and viable option.”
She stood, sick in her heart, in her soul. “No. I can’t let it be sold. It’s mine.”
He also stood. “I know how upsetting this is for you. Virginia, I’m not sure why you are not in school, but that is where you should be—although if you wish, I could try to arrange a match for you, a good one, and speak with your uncle about it. That would certainly solve your problems—”
“Unless you think to marry me to a very wealthy man, then that solves nothing,” Virginia cried.
“I cannot allow Sweet Briar to be sold! Why won’t you help me?
I would pay you back, somehow, one day! I have never broken my word, sir!
Why can’t you see that this is all I have left in the entire world? ”
He stared. “You have a glorious future, my dear. I promise you that.”
She closed her eyes and trembled violently. Then she looked him in the eye. “Please lend me the funds. If you loved my father, my mother, at all, then please, help me now.”
“I’m sorry. I cannot. I simply cannot lend an impossible sum to a young girl who will never in an entire lifetime pay the bank back.”
She could not give up. “Then lend me the funds personally,” she cried.
He blinked. “Virginia, I do not have that kind of wealth. I am sorry.”
She was in disbelief. He started to say something about a fresh start, and she turned and ran wildly through the bank and outside.
There she collapsed against a hitching post, panting hard, shaking wildly, tears of panic and desperation trying to rise.
This could not be happening, she thought. There had to be a way!
“Miz Virginia? Are you all right?” Frank had her by the elbow. His tone was concerned and anxious.
She met his black eyes but did not respond—because an idea had struck her so forcefully that she could not respond.
Her uncle was an earl.
Earls were wealthy.
She would borrow the money from him.
“Miz Virginia?” Frank was asking again, this time with a slight pressure on her elbow.
Virginia pulled free of his grasp and stared blindly across the busy street. She did not see a single wagon, carriage or pedestrian.
She had not a doubt that her uncle had the funds to save Sweet Briar. He was her only hope.
But clearly he didn’t wish to save the plantation, or he would have already done so.
That meant she had to confront him directly—personally.
A letter would not do. The stakes were far too high.
Somehow, she would find the means to cross the Atlantic Ocean, even if it meant selling some of her mother’s precious jewelry, and she would meet her uncle and convince him to save Sweet Briar rather than sell it.
She’d beg, rationalize, argue, debate, she’d do whatever she had to, even marry a perfect stranger, as long as he agreed to pay off her father’s debts.
Virginia realized she had to make plans and quickly, because she was on her way to England.
She knew she could do this. As her father was so fond of saying, where there was a will there was a way.
She’d always had plenty of will. Now she’d find a way.