America's First Daughter: A Novel(75)
Personally, I couldn’t find it in my heart to pity the French royals, who were now rumored to be captives of the revolutionaries. I still recalled our harried flight in the dead of night from British soldiers sent by a king to capture my father. And to my mind, a king who brought troops against his own people was no worthy king at all, if ever there could be such a thing.
So I merely held my head higher so Tom Randolph might get a better look at my red, white, and blue cockade. And I spoke not another word to him during our inelegant supper of chicken and root vegetables.
But he was not to be put off. “Your cockade, Miss Jefferson. Did you wear it in honor of the French revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille?”
As he’d addressed me directly, I replied. “Indeed. The king himself could’ve seen it if he’d looked up at my window upon entering Paris.” The king hadn’t looked up, but Lafayette had. And in that moment my life changed, and the French cause became the American cause in my heart.
But that wasn’t what interested Tom. “I’m told your French is very elegant. You must be the most well-educated girl in Virginia. You’ve returned to us a very cultured and accomplished young woman.”
It was a simple and unaffected compliment. One that I should’ve accepted with gracious thanks. But I sensed a flirtation and was still too raw to bear romantic attention with poise. To accept even harmless pleasantries made me feel something akin to nausea. So I answered with a dismissive flick of my fan, as the ladies did in France, to show unavailability and disinterest.
Of course, I should’ve known better than to try to put off a Randolph with a show of snobbery.
If anything, it made Tom like me better. When he’d known me as a girl, I’d had the stink of a country bumpkin—a lesser relation. Now I was as close to a lady from the Continent as could be found in Virginia. And I suppose Randolph pride demanded that my affections be won over.
“Miss Jefferson,” Tom said, rising from the table with great informality. “Would you be so kind as to show me the grounds?”
“There’s nothing to show. Everything’s covered in snow.”
This earned me a frown from my father. But Tom Randolph fastened his black eyes on me with special intensity. “All the better. There’s a bleakness to snow that calls to me. A stark white challenge.”
I had no idea what he could mean, and I meant to refuse him, but my father arched a brow in a way that presaged his displeasure. So I fetched my coat. And I let Tom lead me off into the winter forest, his hands clasped behind his back, as if to keep them from mischief.
As we walked he towered over me, which was remarkable, since I was of a height with most men. “The forest has lost its color,” I said, feeling strangely small and delicate in his presence.
“I like the trees this way. Stripped bare.” Before I could suspect him of innuendo, his voice lowered, gravely. “They’re so exposed now that we can see their great melancholy.”
I thought I was the only one who ever considered that trees might suffer melancholy, and the way their branches drooped under the weight of the ice suddenly made my own limbs heavier in sympathy. “But springtime will come, and they’ll blossom again.”
Tom stopped, taking the unpardonable liberty of grasping my chin. “Yes, but then, they’ll hide their true beauty behind a mask of showy flowers and leaves. That’s why I prefer them as they are now. You remind me of these trees, Miss Jefferson. You’re a veritable Venus with the eyes of a sage.”
My gaze narrowed. There was something wrong with Tom Randolph. Something reckless and inappropriate and unguarded. I tried to shield myself from it, asking sarcastically, “What kind of eyes do sages have?”
“Sad ones,” Tom replied. “You’re very sad.”
As a rule, I wasn’t sad. I’d been raised to mantle myself always in cheer, and everyone but William Short said I had my father’s agreeable disposition. Yet, in that moment, at the vulnerable age of seventeen, stripped bare of all my defenses, I fought back sudden tears. And this man—this stranger, in truth—saw the darkness inside me and found it alluring.
Taking a kerchief from his coat, he said, “You can cry, Patsy.”
But I couldn’t give him the satisfaction. I couldn’t open that well inside me, or I’d never get it closed again.
THE NEXT MORNING, Papa allowed Sally to accompany him into town to pick up some candle snuffers and other supplies at the store where her sister Mary had taken up with the storekeeper, Mr. Bell. Sally and Mary had both become mistresses to white men. I wondered if that was to be the natural fate of pretty mulatto girls in Virginia.
Watching Papa help Sally alight the carriage, I regretted having lashed out at her. She’d been wary of me since I struck her, and I wanted to beg her forgiveness but couldn’t find the words to do so. Especially not when I felt locked in some manner of battle with her for my father’s affections.
Sally was nearing her time now. Her baby would come in a month or so. If she worried that she’d made a mistake, she’d never say. She’d made her choice and I’d made mine, and now we both had to reconcile ourselves to it. So I stood at the front window watching Papa and Sally ride off, lost in my thoughts.
Tom came upon me so stealthily that he gave me a start. “I’ve a gift for you.” He presented a book of sheet music and a few lines of poetry scribbled on pretty bark paper. “The music is from my sisters, but the poem is from me.”