Chapter 17
17
A rent Schuyler proved to be true to his word with everything he had told Isabella along the journey up the Savannah River. Nonetheless, her trepidation mounted as the boat made its way into the American wild. The farther they sailed from the town of Savannah, the wilder the scenery became, the forest thicker, the distance between farms and homesteads growing farther and farther apart. And it seemed every domicile they passed was cruder than the last, right up until she spotted a woman cooking over an open fire with three children huddled together beneath the ramshackle eaves of a lean-to, of all things.
She was quite relieved when they moored in Augusta and loaded the boat with supplies—evidently where her future husband got most of his supplies. Though they’d only stopped for a few hours, Mr. Schuyler had taken Isabella and Maribel on a brief walking tour of the city. Augusta was nearly as bustling as Savannah had been, with stately homes and a myriad of businesses. But they were quickly hastened back on board the Silver Star to resume their journey. Unfortunately, only about a mile outside of Augusta, the wilderness grew even thicker than it had been before.
Just when Isabella was convinced her betrothed was taking her and Maribel to a shack with a dirt floor, the crewmen furled the sails and took up the oars, directing the boat to the bank, where it docked beside an enormous estate. Her mouth fell open with unabashed awe. The mansion before them looked nothing like the sod-roofed houses and shanties they had recently sailed past.
The enormous red-brick house was set atop a mound and was a good distance from the river to keep it safe from flooding, Mr. Schuyler had said. Manicured gardens with hedged pathways and splashes of colorful flowers led the way up to the stoop, making the home look a great deal like an English manor befitting a peer.
After the housekeeper took Maribel under her wing, Mr. Schuyler himself escorted Isabella on a tour through the house. The circular entry walls were adorned with weapons much like the great homes she had seen in England—though these weapons were from America’s War of Independence, fought against her own countrymen.
From the parlor to the ballroom, there was no want for space. Even the kitchens were large, including a pantry with shelves all the way up to the ceiling, and a warming room. In truth, she had never even seen a warming room before. Of course, many English manors had cold rooms in which they stored their perishables, but the warming room was complete with a cast-iron furnace, which Mr. Schuyler explained was far more efficient at warming great rooms. And he referred to the rather expansive dining hall as the supper room.
How very provincial, indeed.
The bedchambers were all on the second floor, including a fully appointed, never-used nursery. For a moment Isabella stood in shock, staring at the cradle, her heart shrinking, her chest tight. In that moment, she was hit with the stark reality that Gibb MacGalloway was gone and she would never see him again. Tears burned at the back of her eyes, and she wiped her face to hide her desperation.
Thank heavens Mr. Schuyler appeared not to notice as he continued on, animatedly showing her room after room, explaining many of the details, from the types of wood used for doors and moldings, to colors, to curtains and why he chose each of them.
Isabella trudged heavily, following him throughout the rest of the tour, though it all passed by her in a blur. She vaguely remembered the servants’ quarters or the stables filled with dozens of horses of various breeds and sizes, all brought to the estate by her betrothed to fulfil specific needs.
Along the way, Mr. Schuyler introduced her to countless servants. There were so many names that Isabella couldn’t possibly remember any—except for one, Mr. Booker, who ran the mine, which she discovered was located on the property. Everything was on the property, it seemed—after all, her intended owned over sixty thousand acres, the expanse of which was unheard of in West Sussex.
Mr. Booker dressed in shirt sleeves and leather breeches, and wore spectacles. Mr. Schuyler spoke to the chap with a great deal of respect, and later confided that the man had studied law at the University of Georgia.
Most of the laborers lived either in the bunkhouse provided by Mr. Schuyler or in the town of Lockhart, which had a measly population of seven hundred and thirty-one.
It was all overwhelming, far nicer than she had envisioned, and the man who had paid her father for her hand in marriage seemed affable and somewhat fetching, given his advanced years.
But he wasn’t Captain Gibb MacGalloway.
He wasn’t the man who had kissed Isabella behind a tree in a park without even knowing her name. He wasn’t the mariner who had insisted he would never marry.
Isabella didn’t remember much of the rest of the day, or the following morning, when Maribel came in to help her dress. In fact, Isabella stood unmoving while her lady’s maid primped, prodded, and cinched. It was as if her body was numb, her mind skimming the waves of the Atlantic while hanging precariously out over the bow of a ship.
Since disembarking in Savannah, everything had happened too fast. At the small chapel on the estate, time continued forward without her, as if she were outside her body observing the ceremony, standing beside a stranger to whom she heard herself promise to love, honor and obey.
Suddenly the vicar pronounced them man and wife. Mr. Schuyler, her husband, applied a hasty kiss to her lips and led her down the aisle and out into the sunshine, where he promptly clutched his chest and doubled over with the most horrific, pained bellow she’d ever heard.
Isabella threw her arm around his shoulders. “Good heavens, are you ill?”
Grunting, her husband collapsed, taking her to the ground with him.
“Mr. Schuyler!” On her knees, she clasped his face between her palms. “Arent!”
When he did not respond, she twisted in place, searching the stunned faces of the dozens of servants and laborers in attendance. “Help!”
Mr. Booker pushed through the crowd. “Doctor!” he shouted.
Isabella frantically searched the crowd for anyone who might be a physician. A young fellow kneeled beside her, placing two fingers on her husband’s neck. “His pulse is weak. Quickly, we must take him to his bed.”
At least a dozen men hosted Mr. Schuyler’s unconscious body onto their shoulders and started for the house. As she followed, Isabella’s hands trembled, especially the one now adorned by a shiny gold wedding band.
She was instructed to wait in the corridor while the doctor tended Arent inside his bedchamber—a room she was yet to see. Maribel brought a chair, upon which Isabella sat hour after hour while the doctor sent for and received his bag. There was no wedding feast. There would be no wedding night. And while the time ticked past, Isabella began to wonder if the wedding had actually happened at all.
It was dark when the doctor emerged, his expression sullen and drawn. He addressed her with hollow, unblinking eyes. “I am sorry to be the bearer of tragic news, but your husband suffered heart failure. I’m afraid I was unable to revive him.”
A lone tear slid down her cheek and into the corner of her mouth, bringing with it a salty taste. Bleary-eyed, she peered through the open doorway at the lifeless form of Mr. Schuyler, a man she barely knew.
He had been kind, and she believed he would have treated her well.
Bursting into tears, Isabella bent forward and buried her face in her palms. “Dear God, what am I to do now?”
There came no reply to her question, the corridor filling with the sobs racking her body. Isabella had merely come to America to help her father. And along the way she had fallen in love with the only man who had ever given her a passionate kiss. But she had turned her back on him because of duty—not because he had said he would never marry, but because she was duty-bound to follow through with an agreement Papa had made with the gentleman who had just made her a widow.
By now, the Prosperity had set sail for England, and there she sat in a foreign land where she knew absolutely no one.
“Mrs. Schuyler. I’m sure this must have come as an awful shock.” The doctor placed his hand on her shoulder. “Allow me to give you something to help you sleep.”
Sleep came without dreams, as if someone had placed Isabella in a sealed tomb. She didn’t want to wake, didn’t want to do anything but succumb to the blackness surrounding her.
“Miss?” Maribel’s voice cut through the fog. “Are you awake?”
Isabella rolled to her side. “Go ’way.”
“But it is afternoon.” The maid opened the drapes to vicious beams of light. “I’m ever so worried about you.”
Isabella slung an arm across her eyes. Had she heard Maribel correctly? She must have, because the windows faced west and the sun had most definitely traversed to that side of the house. “Did you say afternoon?” Heavens, her mouth was sticky and dry. “What time is it?”
“Two o’clock.”
Never in her life had she slept late, and Isabella still didn’t believe it could possibly two until she raised her head enough to see the mantel clock. “Ugh,” she muttered, promptly dropping back to the pillow. “The doctor’s tonic must have been very powerful indeed.”
“I came in several times to offer my condolences. I am so very, very sorry for your loss. You must be grieving something awful.” Maribel moved to the side of the bed and held up Isabella’s dressing gown. “How are you faring now?”
“I can hardly say.” Isabella’s head swam as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and slowly stood. “This entire charade from the time my father told me I had been promised to Mr. Schuyler has been an utter nightmare.”
“Imagine becoming a widow only hours after taking your vows.”
Isabella donned the dressing gown. Good Lord, she was indeed a widow.
Mrs. Schuyler, the widow .
“Let me help you to the table. I’ve brought up some tea and a bowl of porridge with honey and raisins.” Maribel took her by the elbow. “It isn’t too late in the day for porridge, is it?”
Isabella sat and reached for the teapot. She didn’t feel like eating anything, though a spot of tea ought to clear the cotton out of her mouth. “Porridge is fine.”
“Excellent.” Maribel sat in the chair opposite. As a servant, she didn’t often make herself familiar, but Isabella didn’t mind—actually, she never minded. She had been with the maid for so long that she looked at the woman as more of a friend than a servant. “I suppose it wouldn’t come as a surprise if I said that the vicar and Mr. Booker have been waiting to see you?”
Sipping her tea, Isabella closed her eyes and let the liquid warm her. “Have they?”
“Yes—you must agree to the arrangements, you know.”
She rubbed her temples to assuage the pounding in her head. “I suppose I must.”
For the second time, Isabella went through the motions of dressing and preparing for the day while her mind seemed to be in an utter fog.
“I don’t imagine you’ve given much thought to what you will do?” Maribel asked while she tucked in the laces.
“How could I possibly?” Isabella grasped her lady’s maid by the hands. Though now she was a widow, she had no idea who might be Mr. Schuyler’s heir, and the dread of what might become of her brought on a new queasiness. “Whatever may happen, you will always have a position with me.” Though she had no grounds upon which to make such a promise, she felt compelled to put her faithful lady’s maid at ease. After all, Maribel had chosen to disembark in Savannah, turning her back on Mr. Erskine.
Giving a nod, the maid’s mouth puckered, then twisted as if she had more to say but couldn’t find the words.
There was no use putting off the inevitable, and Isabella dropped Mirabel’s hands, her fingers trembling as she smoothed out her skirts. “Where did you say Mr. Booker and the vicar are waiting?”
“The library.”
Isabella started for the door but stopped abruptly and turned. “Where, exactly, in this manse is the library located?”
“First floor, off the entry.”
“Of course.” She pointed to the floor. “Down the enormous staircase…which is…?”
Maribel snorted good-naturedly. “Take a left, then keep going until you cannot help but notice it.”
“Right.” Isabella gave a quick bow. “Thank you. I do not believe I’d be able to survive this ordeal without you here.”
Of course, Mr. Booker and the vicar needed to discuss the funeral arrangements, and the next few days were taken up with the morose duty of playing the deceased’s grieving wife. After the undertaker prepared Mr. Schuyler’s body, the corpse was placed upon a table in the drawing room, where Isabella sat with the curtains closed, wearing an old brocade mourning gown that she’d once worn to a funeral in West Sussex. So many people passed through to pay their respects, most dressed in working clothes, an inordinately large number being men, of course, since this was the site of the mine.
As planned with the vicar, the funeral was held on the third day. There were so many people in attendance that most of them could not fit into the chapel and stood outside. At the gravesite, every last one of them kissed her hand and expressed their sympathy before they took their leave.
It was late afternoon when the only person left was Mr. Booker. “Would you care to take a stroll, madam?” he asked, offering his elbow.
She gladly placed her fingers in the crook of his arm. “I would truly love to, thank you.”
“Did Arent show you the mine?”
“No, I’m afraid we didn’t make it that far.”
Mr. Booker headed off. “Of course, the men were given leave for the day, but I thought you might like to see what you’ve inherited.”
She coughed out a sardonic laugh. “Inherited? I mustn’t have heard you correctly, sir.”
“On the contrary. You heard me quite clearly. Shortly after the War of Independence, the state of Georgia adopted a constitution in which the practice of primogeniture was abolished. The law clearly states that any person who dies without a will shall have his estate divided equally among their children, and the widow shall have a child’s share or her dower at her option.”
“But I had no dower.”
“And no children, which means you inherit the entirety of the estate.”
“The entirety? Did Mr. Schuyler not have a will?”
Mr. Booker sighed, his expression grim. “He did have one, though when he received word from your father agreeing to the terms of the marriage, he insisted upon adding a clause that all of the above was null and void upon taking his vows.”
“He did so without meeting me first?”
“I think he was in love with you before you set sail from Britain. At least, he was in love with the idea of you.”
With a grunt, she closed her eyes and admonished herself for not considering the man at all and completely losing her heart to Captain MacGalloway. She hadn’t even considered giving her husband a chance. “He was a good man, was he not?”
“A generous, but demanding employer.”
“How long did you work for him?”
“Two dozen years, give or take.”
“Did he pay you fairly in that time?”
“Quite fairly.”
“And I take it the mine is producing well?”
“Quite well. In fact, we’ve recently found a new vein of gold ore that I’m hoping will keep us occupied for some time to come.”
Stopping, Isabella clapped her hands to her bonnet. “Did you say gold?”
A wry grin spread across the lawman’s lips as he gave her a nod.
“But I thought this was a silver mine.”
“It started out that way, but truth be told, silver is often found with gold—we just haven’t made it known for security purposes. Arent was not only a good man, he was very shrewd. Though the mine employs an elite militia to keep the thieves at bay, he always treated his miners well, and, in turn, you’ll not find a more loyal group of laborers.”
“My heavens.” She continued onward while thoughts bounced around her head as if they were tied to springs. “I take it with this new vein of ore, you anticipate the estate’s wealth to grow exponentially?”
“Most definitely, ma’am.”
Isabella glanced back to the house, realizing it was indeed palatial, especially when compared to anything she’d seen thus far. “Tell me, before my husband added the clause that put the entirety of his estate into my hands, who had he named in his will?”
Mr. Booker stood a bit taller and smoothed his hands down his lapels. “Me.”