America's First Daughter: A Novel(120)

“I think you’re avoiding me, Mrs. Randolph,” William said, bareheaded, shielding his eyes against the sun.

“I think I’m harvesting the garden, Mr. Short,” I said, from beneath the shadow of my straw hat, fretting that he should come upon me in my housedress, my hands covered in dirt. A Virginia gentleman would’ve pretended not to see the lady of the house hard at work—even if the garden was her sweet escape from the demands of everyone inside the house; a Virginia gentleman would’ve passed by without a word and waited to address me in polite company.

But perhaps the code of Virginia gentlemen no longer applied to William Short. “Not growing Indian corn this year?” he asked.

I plucked a squash for my basket, too nervous to do more than glance at him. “Are you missing it?”

“I’ve missed many things from Virginia,” he said, moving with gallantry to take the basket from me.

Feeling as if I must surrender it to him, I said, “You’ve been gone a very long time.”

“Seventeen years. Partly in service to my country, partly for powerfully personal reasons.”

I had no right whatsoever to ask about those powerfully personal reasons and I was determined to say nothing of his duchess. “You must find everything much changed.”

His eyes fell upon our enslaved gardener, Wormley Hughes, working with spade and hoe at the far end of the rows, and he frowned. “Some things not enough changed.” Then William turned his gaze to me. “And other things changed nearly beyond my comprehension. I daresay your friends in France won’t believe me when I tell them the girl who ran through the convent with her petticoats in the dirt is now a reserved and nurturing mother of five.”

He walked with me as I worked down a row. “Six if you count Tom’s little sister Jenny—and I always do. Of course, she’s of marriageable age now, and so very pretty I don’t doubt she’ll have her choice of suitors.” I rambled, unable to stop myself. “I’ll have to write more to my French friends.” Especially Marie, I thought. Marie, whose letter from a year ago I still had not answered, finding it too painful to acknowledge that we would never see one another again. “I will write the ones who I still have a way of finding. We’ve been very afraid for them since the revolution.”

His posture stiffened. “With good reason. I’m afraid your father was entirely too optimistic about the happenings in France. But I suppose it’s difficult for anyone who wasn’t there to imagine the horrors that have unfolded.”

“I thank God Lafayette has finally been released. Papa says it was your doing.”

“I wish that were true. Thank Monroe and Morris. I was merely a go-between, but I’m happy for Lafayette. And I wish others had been as fortunate.”

Then I knew that I must say something about his duchess, if only because it was beyond the bounds of decency not to. “Please know that it pained us to learn what befell the Duke de La Rochefoucauld during the September Massacres. My heart suffered for Rosalie to become a widow in such a tragic way. When you see her next, please convey my deepest sympathies and my hopes for her happiness.”

William stared, as if doubting my words. But there was no artifice in what I’d said. Though I harbored jealousy for Rosalie—I could never wish her unhappy. Or him.

At length, William must’ve seen the sincerity in my eyes, because he said, “If I see Rosalie again, I’ll give her your message.”

“If you see her again?” I asked, unwisely, rashly.

At my question, his gaze slid away. “She and I have come to a crossroads. Three times I asked her to marry me and three times she’s refused. At first, in respect to her husband’s memory. Then because she couldn’t leave Madame D’Enville to the mercy of the Jacobins. And finally, because she’d rather be the dowager Duchess de La Rochefoucauld in blood-soaked France than simply Mrs. William Short anywhere else.”

I sensed more bitterness than truth. “You can’t mean that.”

“I’m perhaps being unjust to Rosalie. It’s simply been my misfortune to fall under the spell of women whose loyalties to family and country cannot be shaken by my love.”

My mouth went dry at this very soft, but very earnest, remonstration. I thought to offer some apology, some explanation that might undo the pain I’d caused him in leaving France. “Oh, William—”

“Please don’t,” he said, cutting me off. By using his given name, I’d abandoned the propriety and formality without which our conversation might be a guilty thing. An offense to my husband and my father, both. And it seemed more than he could bear. “It’s the fate of diplomats—a natural hazard of foreign service. But as I said, Rosalie and I have come to a crossroads. Your father has made plain to me that we cannot go on as we have been.”

“My father?” I couldn’t imagine Papa in frank discussion about . . . well, almost anything. But certainly not matters such as illicit mistresses.

William nodded. “When your father was elected president, I hoped, at long last, to secure the position as minister to France that I’ve coveted. Your father, however, informed me that such an appointment is now quite impossible for I’ve been too long absent from our country to represent its sentiments. So I’ve come home.”

He was wounded; I could see that. Nor could I blame him. Though I was certain my father had good reasons, the result struck me as profoundly unjust. William had spent the better part of nearly two decades toiling for his country overseas, sometimes in dangerous places, deftly securing our nation’s credit, making endless intelligence reports to better our position and save us from war. For it to be implied to such a man that he was somehow not enough American to represent his country . . . William must’ve seen it as the grossest ingratitude.