America's First Daughter: A Novel(79)

“Papa,” I said, quite exasperated, an odd pressure behind my eyes. “You haven’t lost your precious little girl; she’s merely grown up.”

“If only that were true,” he said, pulling me close. “Having had yourself and dear Polly live with me so long, I’ll feel heavily the separation from you. But it consoles me to know that you’re happier now.” He patted my hand, clearing his throat to give sage advice. “Your new marriage will call for an abundance of little sacrifices. But they’ll be greatly overpaid by the affections they’ll secure you. The happiness of your life depends now on pleasing a single person. To this, I know all other objects must be secondary, even your love for me.”

Hearing sadness in his voice, I rushed to reassure him. “Oh, Papa. I’ll make it my study to please my husband and consider all other objects as secondary except my love for you.”

He smiled, sheepishly, as if it shouldn’t please him so much to hear it. “Neither you nor your husband can ever have a more faithful friend than me. Continue to love me as you’ve done, and render my life a blessing by the prospect that I may see you happy.” He kissed my cheek and smoothed it with his fingers. “Be assured of my constant and unchangeable love. Especially now that I must put such a burden on your shoulders. Polly, and Sally, and the little one—I’ll sleep easier knowing you’re looking after them for me while I’m away.”

“Sally?” I asked, more than a little confused.

My father’s smile tightened. “I can’t leave her to fend for herself. Better for Sally and the baby to stay under your watchful eye until I return. There’s no one but you that I trust with such a precious charge.”

Though he’d kept Sally from the house during my wedding, I’d seen them exchange looks, both tender and intimate. I’d seen, too, the gleam of pride in his eyes for Sally’s newborn boy—the son Papa had always wanted—and I’d feared that he’d take Sally to the capital, where such an arrangement might make him infamous. But now I understood that whether I lived here, or at my husband’s new plantation, I was still the guardian of Papa’s secrets.

Marriage did not—and would not—end my duty to protect my father.

Just like that, my resentments evaporated. “Oh, Papa,” I said, embracing his neck.

He patted my back. “My dear Patsy . . . But no, I suppose we must call you by your given name now. Martha, or, more properly, Mrs. Randolph.”

Hearing that name made me marvel anew that I was some man’s wife. But a little part of me grieved to think Patsy Jefferson was no more. A thing brought home to me most painfully that afternoon, when a letter finally arrived from William Short.

I found it left open at my father’s seat, a sure invitation to read it. And I pored over every line of William’s decidedly hurried scrawl, searching for my name. Instead, I found nothing but old news from France about how Lafayette bravely risked his life to save people from the angry mob. A part of me still longed to go back. To witness the struggle in the cause of liberty. But I’d made my choice.

And William Short had made his.

He closed the letter with a simple: Present my compliments to the young ladies. So I was just a young lady, now. The same to him as Polly. A daughter of his mentor. Which meant William could be no more than my father’s friend. Perhaps it was just as well.

For Patsy Jefferson had loved William Short.

Martha Jefferson Randolph would make herself feel nothing for him at all.





“ISN’T HE ADORABLE?” Polly asked, cuddling Sally’s infant son. “As sweet as an angel.”

Fortunately, no one at Tuckahoe looked askance at my sister sharing a bed in the dormitory with Sally, who they believed was her lady’s maid. And if Colonel Randolph or any of Tom’s family guessed the mewling baby was closer kin to us than any other Hemings, they didn’t say a word.

Papa had gone off to serve as secretary of state with James Hemings at his side, and Tom intended for us to stay with his family a few weeks before making the traditional round of honeymoon visits to all our friends and country neighbors. But I hoped our stay at Tuckahoe would be brief, because Colonel Randolph reigned over his family like an aging despot.

He cut my husband with casual insults. And the old man’s daughters—my new sisters—fared worse. Colonel Randolph spared hardly a glance for his littlest girls and left the older ones quaking in fear of his temper. Especially Nancy, who’d taken on the role of mistress of Tuckahoe for her widowed father. “Keep your pickaninny quiet,” Nancy snapped at Sally. “Or my father will rage at the noise.”

Seated with Polly on the divan, Sally looked up with only a flicker of indignant anger. In France she’d been an exotic beauty and cosseted mistress. Here in Virginia, she was just a slave again, and it must’ve been difficult for her to swallow down. Still, she did it, whispering a soft, “Yes, Miss Nancy.”

The next day, Nancy glanced nervously at Colonel Randolph’s retreating form. “We’ll take our tea in the garden when Judith visits. This way we won’t call attention to ourselves and give him a reason to scold us.”

“I’d rather take tea inside,” Polly complained. “Otherwise bees will buzz around our biscuits!”

Nancy huffed. “It’s a tea for ladies. You’ll take your biscuits in the kitchen with your maid.”